Health education in Togo : a necessary vaccine to save lives

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Extract from the article: Twenty years of service to health and education in Togo. To mark this anniversary, Santé-Éducation has presented on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, a carefully drafted plea to promote integration health education into the heart of the national public health

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Twenty years of service to health and education in Togo. To mark this anniversary, Santé-Éducation has presented on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, a carefully drafted plea to  promote integration health education into the heart of the national public health strategy. This initiative aims to reverse the alarming trend of a high number of avoidable deaths, by highlighting the fundamental role of information as a preventive tool.

With the ambition of initiating a dynamic of profound transformation in Togo's public health approach, this plea was presented in the presence of structures from the Ministry of Health, partners from the United Nations system and international NGOs. The focus is on the need for greater investment in health education to build a healthier, more resilient population.

A plea for vital and accessible information

Written in a journalistic style, the advocacy document presented by Gadiel Tsonyadzi, journalist and health education columnist, highlights a concern: ignorance continues to cost lives in Togo. In his speech, the Director General of Santé Éducation, Basile Mignake, forcefully emphasized that: « Too many lives are still lost in Togo for causes that could be prevented simply by health education. Ignorance kills. And in many cases, it kills as much as the diseases themselves. » The example of malaria, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the country with almost 5,000 deaths by 2022, is a tragic illustration of these words.

Despite the availability of treatments and impregnated mosquito nets, a lack of effective communication is hampering prevention efforts. Advocacy stresses the need for more frequent awareness campaigns, adapted to local realities and rooted in people's daily lives. That said, more information.

Drawing on Professor Peter Piot's apt quote, « Information is a vaccine. It saves lives in the same way as medicine », the document argues for increased dissemination of clear and accessible preventive messages, concerning both communicable and non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.

Future strategies and perspectives for sustainable impact

Gnandi N'yao-bi-Evan, the office assistant of the Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, stressed the relevance of this plea and recommended defining strategies to ensure the sustainability of the various actions to be carried out by education and health after the presentation of this plea. « We need to activate certain levers, in particular partnerships and resource mobilization, in order to finance the actions that follow », he insisted.

In his presentation, Gadiel Tsonyadzi highlighted the scientific underpinnings of this advocacy, recalling that, according to the WHO, information and education are an important element in the health of populations, and contribute 43% to guaranteeing the health of populations. « The next step will be to draw up a detailed report of this meeting and to put in place a robust strategy for mobilizing resources and partnerships to achieve the ambitious objectives of this advocacy for health education in Togo », he explains.

Yendoumi KOLANI