yesterday morning our captain informed us of a public health report that the UN recently released concerning Ghana...apparently the sewage treatment plant in Accra (capital city of 2 million people) has been on the blink since march 2005. so what's a city to do when it can't treat its dirty sewage? why dump it straight into the atlantic ocean of course! so apparently 80% of accra's sewage has been released untreated into the ocean for the past year...that's the "waste products" of 1.6 million people...makes me a little nauseus to think about. craziest part is the quote from one of accra's goverment officials: "It is a mighty ocean out there. As far as I am concerned, [dumping sewage] doesn't do anything bad to anyone." needless to say i won't be swimming in the ocean or eating any local fish. for the full report, click
here.
on a more positive note, the public health issue that i was most concerned about before coming to ghana seems to be under relatively good control. the HIV infection rate in ghana dropped from 3.6% to 3.1% last year and the trend seems to be continuing downward. on the anastasis we have not had a single patient test positive for HIV since i've been here (however we don't test every single patient). i kind of chuckled at this billboard when i first saw it but hey, seems to be working!
had a wonderful (though hot!) first day as part of the operating staff...will give full details next time.
# posted by Jenn @ 1:36 PM