Okyeame Kwame Foundation’s Campaign to eliminate Hepatitis B

BACKGROUND TO THE OKYEAME KWAME FOUNDATION’S FREE HEPATITIS B SCREENING AND VACCINATION EXERCISE.

The project, Okyeame Kwame fights Hepatitis, has been running for the past 7 years. It has provided free education and sensitization on Hepatitis B, and has freely screened and vaccinated over 6000 people across the country. Screening has been by the medical personnel from MDS Lancet Laboratories and vaccination by qualified medical personnel.

MDS Lancet Laboratories is a service provider and participant in the project. They are the leading providers of private medical laboratory services in Ghana. They provide high quality routine and specialised medical laboratory services in both the public and private health environment. With highly qualified medical personnel, they strive for quality testing and excellent services in order to bring reliable laboratory medicine to the medical fraternity and the people of Ghana. The lab has the highest ISO accreditation for a lab in the country.

After the first two exercises, the idea and the necessity to support the vaccination of diagnosed Hepatitis patients was discovered. This is because it was identified by the Okyeame Kwame Foundation that, either most of the diagnosed persons are not able to afford the vaccines prescribed to them by the volunteer doctors working on the project or they don’t have the time to go and get vaccinated. The reason was that the vaccines are very expensive for the average Ghanaian to afford and also once they test negative they believe they can move on without vaccinating.

This project is also sanctioned and supported by the Ministry of Health which has seen the good works of the initiative and has pledged to provide support and guidance for the initiative as a core base in the effort of the ministry in tackling Hepatitis in Ghana.

This year’s (2016) World Hepatitis Day, will be marked with a free Hepatitis B screening and vaccination which is scheduled to take place in Ho, the Volta Regional Capital on July 28, 2016, where we hope to screen and vaccinate about 500 people. With the support of the Regional Health Directorate, the Regional Hospital and Kekeli Radio as a media partner, we intend to educate the residents of the Volta Region on the Hepatitis B virus, prevention methods and the need to get vaccinated, and treatment available for persons who test positive.