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Health of residents in Abokobi Sesame in the Ga East Municipality of the Greater Accra Region are under threat as some pass urine with blood.
The cause of the health problem is yet to be diagnosed by health experts who have been deployed at the community to collect samples for testing.
It is nonetheless speculated that the symptom experienced by the dwellers of Abokobi Sesame is in connection with a stream that serves the area.
The water body–Mamana–is used by both animals and the residents of the community. This is due to the unavailability of potable water.
People who are incapacitated to construct bore holes, buy water storage tanks or even afford bags or sachets of water (pure water), depend on the Mamana for their domestic use.
Communities like Abokobi Sesame have often been visited by staffs of National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO).
The visits form part of their assessment programmes to find out challenges threatening the lives of people in communities to forestall mishaps, aside making donations of relief items to victims during disasters.
According to the Municipal NADMO Director, Seth Osei Kissi, it was during one of these visits that a staff discovered that a child passed out blood while urinating.
The child according him revealed that it was a phenomenon that was common among his family and peers.
The alarming situation informed NADMO’s decision to immediately invite the Abokobi Health Directorate to inquire into the problem.
Mr. Osei Kissi noted that while they await the findings of the tests from samples taken, his outfit will embark on a sensitization programme aimed at improving the health situation in the community.
A key message to be carried across is boiling of the water to kill the bacteria present in it before use, because “the source of the problem is not known; we are only speculating that the stream could be the reason”.
The Director intimated that efforts are in place to engage stakeholders to get them to support in providing potable water for the community.
Meanwhile some of the residents expressed their frustrations calling for urgent help to save their lives.
One of them, a man whose name is given as Kwame said “‘water’ they say ‘is life’, but this is the water that has gone bad. How do we live that life? Help us.”
A woman pleaded, “we are not different from those who live elsewhere; we are one people. What they do out there, we do here too. So please give us same drinking water so we can survive.”
