Health education with creativity

Understanding HIV/AIDS - Part 1 "The human body is a conversation going on, both within cells and between cells." - Danny Hills You live in a mosquito prone area somewhere in Accra, you go to bed and wake up the next morning with tiny itchy bumps on your skin. A few days later you begin to experience fever, chills, sweating, headache, weakness and other symptoms. That is right! You have been bitten by a mosquito who was probably harbouring the plasmodium parasite and you most likely have malaria. In as much as the tiny itchy bumps, swelling and all the other symptoms may feel uncomfortable and awful, they are signs that your immune system is in good shape and working. There were an estimated 38.0 million people living with HIV at the end of 2019 and it has so far claimed about 33 million lives. – WHO The immune system is a vast network of cells, tissues and organs and it is the body’s safeguard against infections, diseases and ill

Hands washing and Infection Prevention T he Covid 19 pandemic sent the whole world into a hand-washing craze. Veronica buckets with diverse innovations flooded public workplaces and markets. Hand sanitizer business became the new gold rush and the price of soap soared high into outer space but the most jaw-dropping thing that happened was the sudden abundance of hand sanitizers and liquid soap on our hospital wards and even the outpatient departments. When there was no pandemic these items were as scarce as hen’s teeth, and sometimes even water for rinsing was hard to come by , let alone getting running water to do hand washing the right way. Health workers had to break infection prevention protocols on countless occasions due to these challenges. COVID 19 came to glorify hand washing and that is one of the few good things the pandemic brought to us. Hand washing (or handwashing), also known as hand hygiene, is the act of cleaning one’s hands with soap (or equivalent materials) and wat

  Hypertension in Pregnancy What is hypertension and hypertension in pregnancy? Blood pressure is the measure of the pressure exerted by blood on the walls of the artery as it flows through it. This pressure is mostly from the heart pumping blood to the rest of the body. When the blood pressure is high, it is termed hypertension. Hypertension therefore refers to having a blood pressure of that is high , usually 140/90mmHg and above. Blood pressure values are recorded as two numbers; the first one which is called the systolic blood pressure indicates the amount of pressure the blood exerts on the walls of the artery when the heart beats and the second number which is the diastolic blood pressure indicates the amount of pressure the blood exert on the walls of the artery when the heart is at rest in between beats. Degrees of hypertension Mild: diastolic blood pressure 90–99 mmHg, systolic blood pressure 140–149 mmHg. Moderate: diastolic blood pressure 100–109 mmHg, systolic blood pressur