17 April, 2010

Dr. Hideyo Noguchi and University of Ghana Medical School


In November 9, 1987, I visited Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
University of Ghana Medical Scool, P.O. Box 4236, Accra, Ghana.


------------- sorry,  photos are missing
I surveyed the consultation rooms, wards, theater(operating room) of the 
Hospital. There were poor lighting in operation room, and damaged windows 
of wards. I saw childs with Malaria(Plasmodium falciparum), PCM(Protein-
Calorie-Malnutrition) and meningitis due to Tuberculosis.

Dr. Emmanuel Qvaye Archampong(Dean of Medical school) said
----------- Every year, around 60~70 in medicine and 6~10 in dentisty were 
graduated Ghana University and several docters went to England for study
abroad ----- but few, 5% came back to Ghana ------- .

It was founded in 1979 by the aid of the Japanese government. When I visited
4 Japanese were there. One was Dr. Nakano from the department of Pediatrics,
Mie University. I handed over the drugs such as antibiotics, anti-cold medicine
, anti-diarrhea for children and ointments.

Nowadays, The institute is managed by Ghana.
                    see → http://www.noguchimedres.org/
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※Note : Hideyo Noguchi ( 野口 英世1876 – 1928):
In 1913, at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, he demonstrated the presence
of Treponema pallidum (syphilitic spirochete) in the patient's brain of a progressive paralysis
, proving that the spirochete was the cause of the disease.

Dr. Noguchi's name is remembered in the binomial attached to another spirochete,
Leptospira noguchii. In 1928, Noguchi traveled to Africa to confirm his findings.
The purpose of this field work was to test the hypothesis that yellow fever was caused by
spirochaete bacteria instead of a virus. While working in Accra, he died from yellow fever
on May 21, 1928.
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※Later studies showed that Yellow fever is caused by yellow fever virus.
To enter Ghana, Liberia and Guinea, required the certification of yellow fever vaccine.