Dr. Akis Afoko, a Consultant Urologist at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, is worried about the deteriorating state of male reproductive health in Ghana, leading to several deaths in recent times.
According to him, testicular sizes are reducing, many defects in the spermatozoa, and many are actually infertile.
Dr. Afoko, who is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, of the University of Development Studies, made this revelation in an interview with the B&FT, during the 20th anniversary launch and award ceremony of Eminent West Africa Nobles Forum at Sogakope, in the Volta Region.
He lamented, young men are using afrodisiacs because their male sexual function is disrupted, and thier hormone levels are like ninty (90) year old men. “When you test their hormones, you are expecting around 30, they are having 12, 10, 9 and lower than normal”.
Highlighting on the worsening of male reproductive health, he attributed the worring trend to environmental pollutant, such as use of plastics and intakes of chemicals in every day life interrupt the hormones.
“He said, “testicular size is getting smaller and smaller and this is a worrying situation. It is worrying because I measure them with ultra sound. They don’t just come because their testics are getting smaller, but they have symptoms. Semen volume is low, quality of motility of the sperm is low, and many are infertile”.
He said, the situation should not continue and that people should take good care of their health.
Dr. Afoko, who is the President of Le Mete Ghana, a Temale-bsed Non Governmental Organization (NGO), hinted that bladder cancers and kidney stones are on the ascendancy, adding, that even new born babies are also not left out.
He revealed, that certain cancers which should surface in between the sixth and seventh decade of life, but people are coming to the hospital with such diseases which have emerged at the third and fourth decade of life.
“Over the years a lot of diseases which people believe do not exists, we are seeing a lot of them. The reason could be that may be they were not being diagnosed or there was no one to diagnosed them or indeed numbers are increasing”, Dr. Afoko said.
He indicated, “Diseases that we see in children which are inborn, I will say there is an increase because the incidents is greater than the world wide incidents. Also the age of onset of some of these diseases is quite early.
Certain cancers that we see are supposed to be seen on the sixth or seventh decade, but people are coming with the terminal state of these diseases in their third to fourth decade of life such as bladder cancer. Kidney stones are so common in both young and old to the extend that babies that are breast feeding are having Kidney stones”, he revealed.
Dr. Afoko outlined disturbing conditions such as cancers, many congenital malformations, and couples infertility are related to environmental pollutant.
“I remembered a case I found a young man spraying vegetables for sale and I advisied him against it and a year later, he came urinating blood, and when we checked, he had a huge kidney cancer on the left side we had to remove it and he is now an advocate against spraying vegetables and selling them”.
“Spraying weeds and vegetables are hormone interrupters called endocrine. Indeed when you are spraying indiscriminately, all flowers are dying, all the wild flowers that produce nectar are dying, bees cannot make proper honey so we end up mixing with sugar and these are all things that do not promote health”, he said.
The way out
Dr. Afoko is advocating for enhanced awareness creation, initiateions of specific laws and implementation programmes to be able to resolve the situation.
“We need to strengthen education so that people will have the awareness to advocate so that the right legislation can be taken. If we have the right laws and the right enforcement and just encourage people to stay away from these pollutants, because mostly its avoidable and people can choose not to use these things”, he said.
Dr. Afoko, pushes for action to be taken against plastics pollution, spraying chemicals on vegetables farms and on weeds, and find alternatives against environmental degradation.
In finding alternatives, he proposed that Ghanaians should go back to their root of cooking with earthen wear pots, stainless steel pots, boiling tap water and filter it, use paper bag or jute bags.
“We actually can do a lot by taking the bull by the horn and get engaged, choose not to buy sprayed vegetables, try to grow your own vegetables in your own small way, reject plastics, use jute bags,
“We really need to reject these plastics, chemicals, process foods, and go back to our old ways. There is nothing wrong with cooking with an earthen wear pots, stainless steel pots, refilter your water, and boil tap water and filter it, Dr. Afoko said.
