Relationship between Health and Tourism in Ghana
Cornwall and Mozambique have one thing in common and they are both coastal communities used for tourism business in Ghana. Many people depend their daily living on the tourism industry in the country. These two places have live balcony bands and different historic rowing house clubs for the many foreign visitors. The impact of tourism in Ghana largely generates employment, as well as revenues to the state, so as to contribute to the well-being of the local communities in the region. In the similar way, tourism provides the local population with opportunity to sell their products such as the fishermen have the privilege to sell their fish to the tourists. Nevertheless, the impact of tourism in Ghana is not always positive. There are some reports that racism is being rampant among the South African Whites. There are cases that other residents are having land conflicts with the tourism operators who seized the lands from the local residents to build some resorts for the foreign visitors. Additionally, tourism promotes tremendously prostitution practices among the African populations. There are many prostitutes who go to the resorts looking for rich tourists as their customers.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4631209.stm)
Furthermore, the debate over the positive and negative impacts of tourism in the local and regional area in Ghana opens several communities to stable revenues through providing services to affluent tourists who in return pay the Africans biggest pay as they ever receive in their whole life. And, the worst thing, Ghana is one of the regions in South Africa that is not safe for any traveler to travel without any vaccinations and medications for various vaccine-preventable diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, hepatitis, polio, typhoid fever, dengue, pneumonia, meningitis and rabies. Every traveler that goes to Ghana is highly recommended to see his or her doctor 4 weeks before traveling to the place; in order to know the proper way of protecting himself or herself from various illnesses and injuries while going to the region. In this regard, anti-typhoid vaccination is required for the unvaccinated travelers in West Africa especially people who will stay in smaller cities, villages or rural areas where exposure to some diseases will occur through food or water contamination. In addition to that, polio vaccination is also recommended for all travelers going to Ghana. Even though, they already received a primary series of polio virus vaccine; still they must still receive another dosage of IPV before traveling to the region. This is the same thing goes to prevent yellow fever, meningitis and rabies. The vaccinations must be given 20 days prior to the travel and at 10-year intervals if there is on going risk. Moreover, among the above prevalent disease in Ghana, Malaria is the most common disease in most areas in the region. Malaria in Ghana is always a serious disease and even deadly. Majority of the travelers in Ghana that include infants, children and adults are given extra precautions. There are several symptoms occur in a person has a Malaria such as fever, chills, severe sweats, headache, body aches, nausea and vomiting; as well as fatigue.
(http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/ghana.htm)
In view thereof, health problem is still prevalent in the Ghana, despite the promotion of tourism in the place. The government still does not have the capacity to improve the health condition of the people as well as the conditions of the environments. And, over the past decade, various international private organizations and government delegations have already started responding to the growing health problem of the people in the region. Through public education, awareness, training and massive campaign and promotion of early detection practices for various diseases by the assistance from the international delegates are one of the health interventions made in order to improve or alleviate the poor health condition of Ghana. Likewise, the water supply and proper sanitation situation in the region are two of the problems in the region; because of the negligence of the government sector. This only shows that Ghana despite the strong tourism attraction, the economy still remains below the regional level. It even caused lack of financial resources for various infrastructure developments in many areas. This poor infrastructure situation even led to worst health conditions of the many places in Ghana. Also, most health care is provided by the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Services. Hospitals and clinics are mostly run by religious groups in the urban areas. However, in rural areas, there are no modern health care facilities for the patients and for the travelers in the region. This is the very main reason that the tourists in Ghana are highly recommended to have complete vaccinations and medications to all prevalent diseases in the country.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Ghana)
References:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4631209.stm)
(http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/ghana.htm)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Ghana)
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