Mr. Isaac Opoku Asamoah, Senior Technical Officer, Regional Tuberculosis Control, Greater Accra, has disclosed that 2,703 people in the Region contracted tuberculosis last year.
He said 1,751 men had the disease, while 895 women contracted it, as did 203 children between the ages of 0 and 14 years.
Mr. Opoku who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Tema said the age group that was most affected was 45–54 years, with 537 recorded cases.
He said TB was caused by a type of bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis and spread when a person with active TB disease in their lungs coughs or sneezes and someone else inhales the expelled droplets, which contain TB bacteria.
He said symptoms of tuberculosis included coughing, chest pain, night sweats, fever, loss of appetite, loss of weight, and blood in sputum, among others.
He mentioned that ways of prevention were covering one’s mouth when coughing, ensuring proper ventilation, early reporting and diagnosis, healthy eating, and vaccination, among others.
“It is estimated that each day, over 4,000 people across the world lose their lives to TB, and close to 30,000 fall ill with the disease,” Mr. Asamoah said.
Mr Opoku said TB remains a major public health threat in Ghana and the world at large, adding that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is one of the top ten causes of death.
