A.P.H | AGOGO PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL

Other BU Informations.

The Buruli Ulcer Disease In The Asante Akim North District Of Ghana.

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Buruli Ulcer Disease has been prevalent in the Asante Akim North District of Ghana since the early 1970s, long before the disease became endemic in the country and the West African Sub Region in the early 1990s.

Initially the disease was limited Villages in the Afram Plains sector of the district but it gradually spread to other towns in the district.

The Agogo Presbyterian Hospital has been in the forefront of Buruli Ulcer management since the early 1970s. It was one of the first hospitals to use the services of trained volunteers to identify cases of Buruli Ulcer in the district. Currently there are about 50 trained Buruli Ulcer volunteers in the district who are contributing greatly to the management of the disease.

Over the years the expertise in Buruli Ulcer management in the hospital has been handed over from the Missionary Doctors to Ghanaian Doctors posted to the hospital. The Agogo Presbyterian Hospital is a designated Training Centre for Buruli Ulcer Management by both the World Health Organisation and the Ministry of Health of Ghana. Since 2005, 3 Buruli Ulcer training workshops have been held in the hospital at which surgical teams in various endemic regions in Ghana are trained.

In May, 2006, the WHO and the Ministry of Health of Ghana organized an International training workshop on Buruli Ulcer in Agogo Hospital. Participants were drown from all over Africa while the facilitators came from Australia, Switzerland, France, USA, Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire.

Due to the efforts of the Buruli Ulcer Volunteers and the Public Health Unit of the hospital an increasing number of nodules and other clinical froms are being identified and brought to the hospital. Buruli Ulcer accounts for about 0.6% of total admissions per year and the average length of stay in hospital is about 90 days.

A lot of research into Buruli Ulcer has been carried out in the Agogo Presbyterian Hospital, the latest being a drug trial using Streptomycin and Rifampicin as well as Clarithromycin and Rifampicin.

Physiotherapy and the prevention of Disability are taken very seriously in the hospital. Currently a Spanish NGO, ANESVAD, is building a Physiotherapy Unit for the hospital. A breakdown of Buruli Ulcer disease cases in the various clinical forms managed in the hospital from 2005 to 2008 are as follows:

CLINICAL FORMS.	NUMBER OF CASES.
	2005	2006	2007	2008
Nodules	10	20	23	24
Plaque	23	13	41	34
Oedema	4	7	10	1
Ulcer	41	37	35	43
Osteomyelitis	0	0	0	0
Total	78	77	109	102