Quality of care: Marketing of trypanocides for the control of trypanosomiasis in the coastal savanna of Ghana.

Abstract

The rapid change in the privatization of veterinary services and social marketing of drugs have serious implications on the quality of care by the private sector in Ghana's agricultural system, especially drug use, in recent decades. The study explores the perception of 250 farmers over drug marketing to assess the level of drug quality, with particular reference to the treatment of cattle trypanosomiasis in the country and to investigate ways in which they could make better use of trypanosomiasis to control the disease. Specifically, the study seeks to identify constraints associated with trypanocides (e.g. Berenil® and Samorin®) services to assist in policy recommendation. It anticipated a better understanding of how cattle farmers ranked the quality of veterinary drug services from drug-sellers using Likert Scale. The views on drug services were ranked as follows: excellent (5), good (4), fair (3), undecided (2) and poor (1). The findings showed that farmers judged drug "effectiveness of treatment" most leniently and on "regularity of follow up" most harshly among the 10 response categories. The average rating on "effectiveness" of rating was 4.21 ± 0.29 s.d. and 10 districts recorded an average score above 4. On the other hand, the average treatmeant on "regularity of follow-up" was 1.05 ± 0.05 s.d., with five districts recording 1. It was concluded that the perception of 250 farmers in the 11 districts over the drug use is similar. For the fact that farmers take the responsibility of treating livestock diseases themselves, there is the need to include them in training programmes and also in decision making and policy development on drug use. Training curriculum for drug sellers is a key factor and should include the implications involved in buying drugs from veterinary stores without prescriptions from the veterinary doctor. Further, drug sellers should also be trained on the implications of drug abuse (overdose and under dose).