"The Alpha Health Insights"

A good statistic can hide a hard truth. At the Zonal Maternal and Perinatal Deaths Review Meeting, held on 22nd October 2026 at the Heartland Hotel in Ada Foah, health leaders had real progress to celebrate because Zone 2 recorded zero maternal deaths in the period under review. Even so, the room spent most of its time on the babies who did not survive, and on what the health system must change so that fewer families face that loss. Who gathered, and why The Ada East District Health Directorate hosted the Ghana Health Service meeting for the Greater Accra Region. Regional representatives, district directors, medical superintendents, and paediatric and maternity heads from Ada East, Ada West, Ashaiman and Ningo-Prampram all took part, so decision-makers and frontline clinicians were able to speak to one another directly. The Deputy Chief Nursing Officer of Ada East, Mrs. Vivian Okpojah, opened the meeting and welcomed participants. The District Director of Health Services, Rev. Dr....

  An evidence-based guide to a common, lifelong and entirely manageable  infection. Genital herpes is not a rare affliction visited upon the careless. It is one of the most widespread viral infections in human history, and the majority of people who carry it will never know. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 520 million people aged 15 to 49 were living with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) in 2020, while a further 376 million carried a genital HSV-1 infection  yet only about 205 million of them experienced any recognisable symptom that year. The virus is everywhere; awareness of it is not. That gap matters because herpes spreads most efficiently from people who have no sores, no warning signs, and no reason to suspect they are infectious. Understanding how the virus actually behaves how it invades, how it hides, and how it resurfaces is therefore the single most effective protection available. And the reassurance almost nobody hears at diagnosi...

  Think about the last time you sat through a long trotro ride, a full day at the office, a lengthy church service or an evening of television. When you finally stood up, did your legs feel heavy, your feet stiff or your ankles a little puffy? That feeling is your body asking for movement. And the good news is that answering it does not require a gym, special clothes or a big block of free time. Why Movement Matters for Blood Flow Your heart is the pump that sends blood around your body, carrying oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, brain, skin and organs. But getting blood back to the heart is a different challenge, especially from your feet and legs. The blood has to travel upward, against gravity. This is where your muscles come in. Each time your calf muscles tighten, they squeeze the veins running through them, and tiny one-way valves inside those veins keep the blood moving toward the heart rather than slipping backward. Doctors sometimes call the calves the "sec...

  Two people are exposed to gonorrhoea on the same weekend. Within three days, the first has burning when passing urine and a thick, pus-like discharge. He is uncomfortable, but he goes to a clinic, is tested, treated and followed up. The second, a woman, notices nothing. Perhaps a slightly increased discharge she puts down to her cycle. Perhaps mild burning she assumes is a urinary infection. The bacteria are still multiplying in her cervix. Gonorrhoea persists because the symptoms are unevenly distributed. The people who feel the infection tend to get treated. The people who don't tend to carry it, and pass it on, for weeks or months.   This article explains what gonorrhoea is, what the bacterium does inside the body, why symptoms are so unreliable, how it can damage fertility, and why it has become one of the most closely watched antibiotic-resistance threats in the world. The Organism: A Bacterium Built for Survival Gonorrhoea is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae , al...