By Mercy Arthur, GNA
Tema, Dec. 28, GNA – Dr Michael Tetteh, Head of the Herbal Unit at Tema General Hospital, has advised individuals to test for malaria before commencing any malaria-related treatment.
He said before a patient should go for artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a treatment for malaria, they had to test positive for it.
He stated that malaria parasites manifest in the body within 10-15 days when bitten by the female Anopheles mosquito.
Dr Tetteh, who is also a Herbal Physician disclosed this during the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication.
The Tema General Hospital Herbal Physician added that people showing symptoms of malaria when they visit the pharmacy to conduct their test without being positively diagnosed would be given artemether-lumefantrine medications.
He advised the public to visit health facilities instead of going to the pharmacies first.
He noted that even though one tests negative for malaria with the rapid test, it was advisable to visit a health facility to go through the blood film test procedure, which was more specific, and the diagnosis assured.
Thus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) does not support the act of not testing before treatment for malaria; hence, consuming any malaria drugs consistently without the test would now cause the parasites to develop resistance even when we use either an insecticide net or insecticide spray.
“The intake of artemether-based drugs because you think you have malaria would help the parasites develop resistance; therefore, it is not advisable,” he cautioned.
Dr Tetteh said when communal labour was organised in communities by desilting chocked gutters, weeding bushy areas, and getting rid of stagnant water, it would help in the prevention of malaria as mosquitoes could not breed easily in such a clean and healthy environment.
He highlighted that the WHO recommended that the standard medication for the treatment of malaria be artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT).
He advised the public to ensure a good and healthy life, especially eating well, wearing clothes to cover parts of the body at night, and sleeping in well-treated insecticide nets, which would help prevent them from the disease.
GNA