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THE Sagnerigu District Assembly in the Northern Region has formed a taskforce mandated to monitor and manage the recent spate of meningitis that has so far killed several students of second-cycle institutions and hospitalised others.

The taskforce, christened the ‘District epidemic preparedness team’, is tasked to visit the dormitories and dining halls of all secondary schools in the district, to ensure that there is proper ventilation.

The taskforce includes health personnel from the district’s health directorate, assembly members and other major stakeholders from the education sector.

The Sagnerigu District Chief Executive, Mariam Iddrisu, in a Citi News interview, described the epidemic as a human security threat, hence the move to curtail its spread in the area.

“Basically, the district epidemic preparedness team is mandated to meet on a quarterly basis or during an outbreak or whenever there is a threat of an outbreak. And currently, we have an outbreak following stories from other places.”

As the district that harbours the Northern Region’s education ridge enclave, she called for a multifaceted approach in tackling the situation in Sagnerigu.

“We brought ourselves together to discuss and also adopt strategies that we can put in place to ensure that the district is not hard hit by the meningitis outbreak.

“We agreed that there was the need to carry out health education in all the secondary schools within the district. And then again, we also saw that there is the need to alert all hospitals within the district to be in readiness for early treatment so that even if we get an outbreak or a case, we will not record deaths.”

Mariam Iddrisu emphasised that, “As the District Chief Executive, I think that the lives of the people are my responsibility so if we can avoid or prevent deaths from early treatment, it becomes necessary to alert all hospitals to be in readiness.

“We also saw the need to alert members of the surveillance team to look out for certain signs and symptoms in their catchment areas.”

The Sagnerigu District Chief Executive disclosed her administration’s preparedness to build sick bays in all second-cycle institutions in the district to guarantee the students’ health.

According to her, the district has enough vaccines to cater for victims of meningitis in case of any outbreak.

Tamale Senior High School (Tamasco), Northern School of Business (NOBISCO), Business Secondary School (BISCO), Tamale Islamic Senior High School, as well as tertiary institutions such as the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale City campus, Tamale Technical University, Bagabaga and Tamale Colleges of Education and the Northern Regional Education Directorate are in the Sagnerigu District.