Miss Heritage Ghana educates public on Ebola

Miss Heritage Ghana, Zainab Asiedu, has embarked on a sensitisation campaign to educate pupils, students and the general public on the devastating nature of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The campaign, which is her project as  Miss Heritage Ghana, seeks to educate the public on the need to observe personal hygiene, particularly hand washing with soaps and running water.

Miss Heritage

The pageant is an innovative international programme that celebrates the integrity, intelligence and personality of women, using heritage as a tool for sustainable development. It was instituted on the basis of encouraging young women around the world to have opportunities to represent the most important features of their countries, national heritage.

The campaign

Miss Asiedu began her campaign in Tamale where she held  fora at the Tamale Main Lorry Park, the Tamale Teaching Hospital and the Nyahini Vocational Institute.

She also distributed educational materials, fliers and leaflets on the EVD to drivers, passengers, hawkers and passers-by.

At all the places, Miss Asiedu, who was accompanied by medical experts, interacted with the people and educated them on the seriousness of the disease, noting that it was important that Ghanaians practised personal hygiene, “because the prize of Ebola outbreak in Ghana would be too much for us to bear”.

Briefing the Daily Graphic on her return, Miss Asiedu  said the campaign went well and that she was poised to replicate what she did in Tamale in other parts of the country.

She said at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, she met with the management and later held a durbar with the staff, where there were discussions on the preparedness of Ghana in  case of an Ebola outbreak.

Miss Asiedu said she took the people through the background of the virus explaining that the epidemic began in Guinea in December 2013, spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal, and attained a global status when the United States confirmed reported cases of the disease on September 30, 2014. 

At the various locations, Miss Asiedu took the people through ways to avoid getting the disease.

She advised them to carry the message to their families to be on guard.