In October, Ghana’s Ministry of Health plans to begin a national program to eliminate malaria with the goal of being the first country in Africa to eradicate the disease, George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, the minister of health, said recently at the 74th Annual Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, GNA/Homepage Ghana reports. Yankey cited the looming threat of the malaria parasite’s resistance to artemisinin therapy (8/3).

According to Yankey, the government spends more than $760 million annually on malaria treatments, Ghanadot.com reports. “It is social justice if we strive to relieve the poor of over 35 percent of their income which would otherwise be spent on malaria. And it is morally right if we work to save those children who loose the battle with malaria every minute,” Yankey said. The publication writes, “On efforts to fight malaria in the West African Sub-region, the Minister revealed that he is collaborating with his colleagues Ministers of Health in Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire and others in the West African Sub-region to rid off the whole sub-region out of malaria.”

Yankey “called on pharmacists to be more active in the activities of the district health management team in their various areas,” reports Ghanadot.com, which writes about other information addressed at the conference (Kunateh, 8/3). GNA/Homepage Ghana also reports on additional drug-related issues discussed at the conference (8/3).