Project coordination
Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine

Partners
University Medical Center Groningen
Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine
Ghana Health Service
Buruli Ulcer Victims Aid (BUVA) Foundation

Aim: The study aims to establish a prison skin health programme that is acceptable and effective to identify and treat skin NTDs among prisoners in a Ghanaian penitentiary

Full project title: Implementation of a skin Health Programme in a Ghanaian penitentiary

Project summary

Ghana, a country located on the west coast of Africa, is endemic for multiple Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). Co-endemic NTDs in Ghana include leprosy, Buruli ulcer, lymphatic filariasis, scabies and yaws. Ghana has heeded to the global call for the integration of services for NTDs; the recently launched country NTD Master Plan aligns with this global goal to reduce the burden of NTDs to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the progress made in the country’s quest to fight NTDs, there has not been a focus on NTDs within the prison setting in Ghana. Prisoners are a key vulnerable population for NTDs. Persons from poor backgrounds and low socio-economic status are most affected by NTDs and this is the same class of persons who are more likely to end up in prison. Within prisons, access to water, sanitation and hygiene services are limited. Further, there is a general poor access to healthcare for inmates and services for skin NTDs are particularly absent within the Ghanaian prison system. Furthermore, overcrowding within prisons can potentiate the spread of communicable NTDs and result in outbreaks.

The goal of this project is to build the capacity of the Kumasi central prisons for the improved detection and management of skin NTDs in partnership with stakeholders including inmates, staff and affected persons. Stakeholders will investigate and co-design a skin health education programme (SHEPP) for the prison to better control skin NTDs. Screening for skin NTDs among incoming prisoners, inmates and staff and investigating relationships between NTDs and social determinants of health to better understand the patterns in the prison context is key for controlling outbreaks of communicable diseases in this setting.

With its focus on a co-designed intervention that is pertinent, timely, context-specific, and directly based on mixed-methods research evidence; as well as its emphasis on training prison staff, this project will plead to unique solutions for skin NTD control in the prison through the development of a knowledge-based intervention from a large, diverse and multidisciplinary team. This project will bring health service delivery to the doorstep of the prison inmates thus enhancing equitable access to healthcare. To maintain context-specific sustainability, the SHEPP project will seek to involve and collaborate with inmates, prison staff, local health workers, and other pertinent local stakeholders (including policy makers) from the Project planning phase through the duration of the Project.