The Savanna Regional Health Directorate has appealed to the people of the region to support the Girls' Iron Folic Tablets Supplementation (GIFTS) programme to help in ending anaemia among adolescent girls in that part of the country.

Speaking at a media/stakeholder engagement on the GIFTS programme in Damongo, the Savanna Regional Nutrition Officer, Mr Brian Kamara, disclosed that anaemia remains a major public health problem in Ghana with a prevalence rate of 26 per cent among young adults aged between 15 and 19 years in 2017.  

Mr Kamara said the GIFTS programme was being implemented as an inter-sectoral intervention between the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Ghana Education Service (GES), together with their partners to promote health and nutrition education and enhance behaviour change to control and prevent anaemia among the girl-child in the country.

He bemoaned the misconceptions around the GIFTS programme and clarified that the girls are not being given family planning pills. 

He added that "we need the strong partnership and support of the media to correct some of these misconceptions".