Ghana Wildlife Society

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on individuals, communities and nations all over the world. The best minds around the globe worked hard to produce vaccines, which are considered to be humans’ best chance against the virus. Unfortunately, vaccine hesitancy has been reported in many parts of the world. These hesitancies are large due to the perceptions people have about COVID-19 vaccines. This study aimed to determine the perception of people in Pantang regarding the COVID-19 vaccination, the factors that fuel these perceptions, and the possible interventions that could be implemented. The researchers employed a quantitative approach. A cross-sectional study was used to determine the perception of the people of Pantang about the COVID-19 vaccination. The researcher used online questionnaires to collect the study data. The researchers employed a convenience sampling technique to select research participants. The people of Pantang had a good perception of the COVID-19 vaccination. The people of Pantang had a good perception of COVID-19 Vaccination. The research revealed that the people of Pantang had a good perception of the COVID-19 vaccination. The study identified trust in COVID-19 vaccination as a major factor that affects COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Education, public engagements and involving religious leaders are the three main ways to enhance COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

In Ghana, a severe mental healthcare gap of 95–98% exists due to limited services. Ghana Somubi Dwumadie set out to address this by developing district mental healthcare plans (DMHPs) in three demonstration districts. Following the Programme for Improving Mental Healthcare model, district mental health operations teams were formed and used Theory of Change (ToC) to develop DMHPs. Key elements included training non-specialist health workers and enrolling individuals in relevant healthcare programmes. Evaluation methods included routine data, health facility surveys, and qualitative analysis within the ToC framework. Results showed improved integration of mental health services, enhanced case management through training, and increased service utilisation, shown through 691 service user enrollments. However, there was limited commitment of new resources and no significant improvement in primary care workers’ capacity to detect priority mental health conditions. The study concludes that DMHPs, implemented with an integrated approach, can improve mental health service utilisation, contingent on committed leadership, resource availability, and stakeholder engagement.

BackgroundFew studies have examined the prevalence of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions, case detection and treatment in primary healthcare in rural settings in Africa. We assessed prevalence and case detection at primary healthcare facilities in low-resource rural settings in Ghana.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted at the health facility level in three demonstration districts situated in Bongo (Upper East Region), Asunafo North (Ahafo Region) and Anloga (Volta Region) in Ghana. The study participants were resident adult (> 17 years) out-patients seeking healthcare at primary care facilities in each of the three demonstration districts. Data were collected on five priority MNS conditions: depression, psychosis, suicidal behaviour, epilepsy and alcohol use disorders.ResultsNine hundred and nine (909) people participated in the survey. The prevalence of probable depression was 15.6% (142/909), probable psychotic symptoms was 12% (109/909), probable suicidal behaviour was 11.8% (107/909), probable epilepsy was 13.1% (119/909) and probable alcohol use disorders was 7.8% (71/909). The proportion of missed detection for cases of depression, self-reported psychotic symptoms, epilepsy and alcohol use disorders (AUD) ranged from 94.4 to 99.2%, and was similar across study districts. Depression was associated with self-reported psychotic symptoms (RR: 1.68; 95% CI: 1.12–1.54). For self-reported psychotic symptoms, a reduced risk was noted for being married (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.39–0.98) and having a tertiary level education (RR: 0.12; 95% CI: 0.02–0.84). Increased risk of suicidal behaviour was observed for those attending a health facility in Asunafo (RR: 2.31; 95% CI: 1.27–4.19) and Anloga districts (RR: 3.32; 95% CI: 1.93–5.71). Age group of 35 to 44 years (RR: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.20–0.90) was associated with reduced risk of epilepsy. Being female (RR: 0.19; 95% CI: 0.12–0.31) and having a tertiary education (RR: 0.27; 95% CI: 0.08–0.92) were associated with reduced risk of AUD.ConclusionsOur study found a relatively high prevalence of probable MNS conditions, and very low detection and treatment rates in rural primary care settings in Ghana. There is a need to improve the capacity of primary care health workers to detect and manage MNS conditions.

The communication skills of politicians determine the attitudes of electorates towards the outcomes of national elections. However, media news framing of presidential elections affects and shapes the electorate’s perceived attitudes toward elections. This study employed a comparative experimental design to test the hypotheses by varying the valence and types of frames (i.e., positives vs. negative frames × thematic vs. episodic frames) to evaluate how these news frames affected the perceived attitudes of Ghanaian electorates towards the 2020 presidential election in Ghana. Stratified sampling approach was used to enroll 2,702 participants for this study from nine regions. The findings showed that the framing effects were few, weak, and not robust among the electorates in the nine regions. The findings further indicated that the perceived attitudes of electorates toward the elections were not consistent. The perceived attitudes towards the election were influenced by a single news frame and the effects of the news frames were not determined by a single news frame. Finally, the perceived attitudes of Ghanaian electorates toward the 2020 elections were found not to be determined by a particular news frame.

Abstract Background: Few studies have examined the prevalence of mental, neurological and substance use disorders, case detection and treatment in primary healthcare in rural settings in Africa. We assessed needs and case detection rate at primary healthcare facilities in low-resource settings in Ghana. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the health facility level in three demonstration districts situated in Northern, Middle and Southern belts in Ghana. These districts are Bongo (Upper East Region), Asunafo North (Ahafo Region) and Anloga (Volta Region). Data were collected on five priority mental, neurological and substance use conditions of interest including depression, psychosis, suicidal ideation, epilepsy and alcohol use disorders. Results: Nine hundred and nine (909) people participated in the survey. The prevalence of depression was 15.6% (142/909), psychosis was 12% (109/909), suicidal ideation was 11.8% (107/909), epilepsy was 13.1% (119/909) and alcohol use disorders was 7.8% (71/909). The proportion of missed detection for cases of depression, psychosis, epilepsy and alcohol use disorders (AUD) ranged from 94.4% to 99.2%, and was similar across study districts. Depression was associated with psychosis (RR: 1.68; 95% CI: 1.12-1.54). For psychosis, a reduced risk was noted for being married (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.39-0.98) and having a tertiary level education (RR: 0.12; 95% CI: 0.02-0.84). Increased risk of suicidal ideation was observed for those attending a health facility in Asunafo (RR: 2.31; 95% CI: 1.27-4.19) and Anloga districts (RR: 3.32; 95% CI: 1.93-5.71). Age group of 35 to 44 years (RR: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.20-0.90) and attending a health facility in the Anloga district (RR: 0.43; 95% CI: 0.20-0.90) were associated with reduced risk of epilepsy, but not for those more than 35 years (RR: 3.06; 95% CI:1.14-8.24). Being female (RR: 0.19; 95% CI: 0.12-0.31) and having a tertiary education were associated with reduced risk of AUD (RR: 0.27; 95% CI: 0.08-0.92). Conclusions: Our study found a relatively high prevalence of MNS conditions, and very low detection and treatment rates in rural primary care settings in Ghana. There is a need to improve the capacity of primary care health workers to detect and manage mental health conditions, together with improved medication supply and referral pathways.

Abstract Background: Access to quality mental health services in Ghana remains poor, yet little is known about the extent of integrated mental health service provision in districts in Ghana. The purpose of the study was to conduct a situation analysis of integrated mental health service provision in five districts, to inform the development and implementation of tailored district mental healthcare plans in Ghana. Methods: A cross-sectional situation analysis was conducted using a standardised tool to collect secondary routine healthcare data supplemented with interviews with key informants across five purposively selected districts in Ghana. The PRIME (Programme for Improving Mental health care) situation analysis tool was adapted to the Ghanaian context and used for data collection. Results: The districts are predominantly rural; more than eight out of ten people in each selected districts live in rural areas. Mental Neurological and Substance use (MNS) conditions were not routinely reported in the top 10 causes of OPD attendance. Across all districts there are severe challenges with the provision of mental health care, primarily because of the slow enforcement of the mental health Act 2012 (Act 846). There are no mental health care plans, supervision of the few mental health professionals is weak and unstructured, access to regular supply of psychotropic medications is a major challenge, and psychological treatments are extremely limited given the lack of trained clinical psychologists. Data on treatment coverage was unavailable but we estimate this to be <0.5% for depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy across districts. Nonetheless, opportunities for mental health systems strengthening were noted. These included commitment and willingness of leadership, the existence of a district health information management system, well-established network of community volunteers and some collaboration with traditional and faith-based mental health service providers. Conclusion: The baseline data from this situation analysis confirms the widely reported poor mental health infrastructure across Ghana and other Low and Middle-Income Countries. There are opportunities for strengthening mental health systems through interventions at the organisation/policy level, health facility, and community levels. A standardised situation analysis tool is useful to inform district level mental health care planning in low resource settings in Ghana and potentially other sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: This article shares lessons from four case studies, documenting experiences of evidence use in different public policies in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).Objectives: Most literature on evidence use in Africa focuses either on one form of evidence, that is, evaluations, systematic reviews or on the systems governments develop to support evidence use. However, the use of evidence in policy is complex and requires systems, processes, tools and information to flow between different stakeholders. In this article, we demonstrate how relationships between knowledge generators and users were built and maintained in the case studies, and how these relationships were critical for evidence use.Method: The case studies were amongst eight case studies carried out for the book entitled ‘Using Evidence in Policy and Practice: Lessons from Africa’. Ethnographic case studies drawn from both secondary and primary research, including interviews with key informants and extensive document reviews, were carried out. The research and writing process involved policymakers enabling the research to access participants’ rich observations.Results: The case studies demonstrate that initiatives to build relationships between different state agencies, between state and non-state actors and between non-state actors are critical to enable organisations to use evidence. This can be enabled by the creation of spaces for dialogue that are sensitively facilitated and ongoing for actors to be aware of evidence, understand the evidence and be motivated to use the evidence.Conclusion: Mutually beneficial and trustful relationships between individuals and institutions in different sectors are conduits through which information flows between sectors, new insights are generated and evidence used.

Tropical land-use change for agricultural expansion is the primary driver of global biodiversity decline. Efforts to stem this decline often focus on protecting pristine habitats or returning farmland to forest, yet such approaches fail to protect vulnerable taxa reliant on habitats within low-intensity farmland. We assess the economic viability of carbon-based payments for ecosystem services (PES) to protect farmland trees and fallowing in Ghana, which provide vital wintering sites for imperiled Afro-palearctic migrant birds and enhance landscape-level carbon storage. We estimate the carbon breakeven prices (BEPs) associated with alternative agricultural management scenarios that protect existing farmland trees. BEPs associated with tree protection on existing farmland were very low, ranging from US$2.49 to US$6.45 t−1 CO2. Extending and reintroducing fallow periods also carried competitive BEPs, US$4.67—US$15.45 t−1 CO2, when combined with the protection of 50 trees per hectare. Accounting for leakage and economic uncertainty increased BEPs considerably, but scenarios protecting farmland trees and extending fallow periods remained below EU Emissions Trading Scheme prices. Protecting low-intensity farmland habitats and associated biodiversity is cost-effective under carbon-based PES. Implementation should be combined with efforts to close yield gaps, providing greater local food security and resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit at a time when the Ascend West and Central Africa programme was nearing the end of its first year of a 3-y programme. This article reflects on key lessons learnt from the rapid adaptation of an integrated neglected tropical disease (NTD) programme to support COVID-19 responses in 11 countries. It shares the experiences of adopting a flexible and directive approach, leveraging the NTD network and relationships, and working in collaboration with multiple ministry departments, commercial sector partners and the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office to repurpose over £6 million of budget.