The Central Regional Minister, Mrs Ama Benyiwa Doe, has appealed to Public Health Technical Officers to help keep surveillance on HINI especially along the country's borders, to help curb its spread.
She said it was alarming the nation had so far recorded seven cases of the disease and appealed to the officers to help track all suspected cases and also visit all health facilities on daily basis to prevent it from spreading.
Mrs Benyiwa Doe said this in a speech read on her behalf at the second annual general meeting of the Ghana Association of Public Health Technical Officers.
The group used to be known as "Public Health Technical Officers Group".
Field Technicians, Disease Control, Nutrition and Health Information Technical officers are attending the four-day conference and they will deliberate on "the role of quality data in effective control of malaria in children and pregnant women and an update on nutrition surveillance and child growth promotion, data quality needs".
She also called on the participants to be vigilant in ensuring that diseases that had been brought under control did not re-emerge and expressed concern that despite various interventions malaria was still on the increase.
The Regional Minister queried if the situation was due to the fact that the right data on the disease was being collected and used to plan in order to halt the situation and said quality data provided the basis to assess and evaluate progress and achievement of programmes.
Mrs Benyiwa Doe expressed the hope that the group would work in collaboration with other health professionals to get more reliable data.
Dr Samuel Kwashie, Acting Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, deplored the attitude of Ghanaians towards data collection and storage.
"We do not care about the quality of data we collect so our data are either over or under-estimated", he said and stressed the need to validate data collected to ensure that they are beneficial.
Mr. Douglas Brenya, National President of the group, outlined the important roles members of the group play in the health delivery system such as in the control of diseases, surveillance, education on nutrition and growth monitoring.
He was however, unhappy that members of the group faced various challenges like disparities in promotion and salary structure and appealed to the Ghana Health Service to address the situation.
Nana Kwamena Nyimfa IV, Adontenhene of the Oguaa Traditional Area, chaired the function.