BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The reason I came to Ghana was to help publicize the introduction of two vaccines to the Ghanaian heath care system: a rotaviral vaccine and a pneumococcal vaccine for newborns.

These vaccines will help stave off infant diarrhea and pneumonia which kill more children under the age of five than malaria and tuberculosis combined.

A quick geography lesson: Ghana is located on the western coast of Africa, sort of. According to the CIA World Factbook it has a population of a little over 25 million of whom nearly 70 percent are Christian. The country is slightly smaller than Oregon.

This is sub-Saharan Africa, located just eight degrees north of the equator, so it is hot just about all the time. The temps have been in the high 80’s every day with a “feels like” temperature of about 104 because of the humidity. This is the beginning of the rainy season but we had only one rain storm, which was a dandy, and it passed in about an hour. Continue reading →