The Marburg case in Jelinkon, near Ghana’s Mole National Park, exposed weaknesses in local detection and response. A resident died before the disease was confirmed. Nearly 30 people who had contact with the deceased were traced, isolated and monitored for symptoms such as high fever, severe headaches and bleeding. The World Health Organization describes Marburg as a severe viral haemorrhagic fever transmitted from fruit bats that has no approved vaccine or treatment.
Local veterinary officer Stephen Dormateiha Bazilma collected samples with limited resources, wrapped a flask in plastic and sent it by public transport to laboratories in Tamale and then Accra. He says farmers sometimes refuse to pay and that he is sometimes forced to pay testing costs himself.
Ghana’s story mirrors wider problems in Africa. Anthrax outbreaks in Kenya and African swine fever in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Kenya spread quickly because of poor biosecurity, free‑range farming, panic selling and no compensation for culled animals. Experts and Africa CDC advise decentralised diagnostics, mobile labs, trained teams, stronger local governance, sustained financing and community ownership to translate One Health policy into practice.
Difficult words
- detection — process of finding disease cases early
- response — actions taken to manage an emergency
- trace — find people who had contact with someonetraced
- isolate — keep sick people separate from othersisolated
- haemorrhagic — causing heavy bleeding from the body
- transmit — pass a disease from one host to anothertransmitted
- veterinary — relating to animal health and animal doctors
- biosecurity — measures to prevent disease spread on farms
Tip: hover, focus or tap highlighted words in the article to see quick definitions while you read or listen.
Discussion questions
- Which of the expert recommendations (decentralised diagnostics, mobile labs, trained teams, stronger local governance, sustained financing, community ownership) do you think is most important for rural areas, and why?
- How might lack of compensation for culled animals change a farmer's choices during an outbreak? Give one or two reasons.
- Can you describe a local problem in your area that makes disease detection or testing difficult? What could help fix it?
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