Ghana has very little reliable data on how many people live with epilepsy, a brain condition that causes repeated seizures and often carries heavy stigma. The few community studies available came from the middle belt. A large door-to-door survey in two districts of Greater Accra now adds evidence from the south.
Fieldworkers screened 65,177 people in 13,985 households in Shai-Osudoku and Ningo-Prampram, and specialists confirmed active epilepsy in 421 people. After adjusting for people lost between screening stages, that is 8.84 cases for every 1,000 residents, or almost 9 in every 1,000.
Poverty made a sharp difference. In the poorest fifth of households, 17.37 people in every 1,000 had epilepsy, compared with 5.54 in the richest fifth, about three times higher. Mainly rural Shai-Osudoku recorded 12.30 cases per 1,000, roughly double the 6.19 in peri-urban Ningo-Prampram. Rates were higher in men than in women and peaked among people aged 20 to 29.
Many of the risks are preventable. Among children with epilepsy, 53% had a history of fits during high fever, compared with 2% of children without the condition, and 10% had had severe malaria, against 2%. Among adults with epilepsy, 12.5% reported a past head injury, compared with fewer than 1% of adults without it.
The researchers link head injuries partly to road crashes, including on commercial motorbikes, and call for helmet use, better care after injuries and closer attention to children who have had fever fits or severe malaria.
For Ghana, the findings suggest that preventing severe malaria, cutting road injuries and tackling poverty could also help reduce epilepsy, especially in remote rural communities far from good health care.
Research Scope
This article is based on a peer-reviewed journal article published in Epilepsia in 2026 and held in the University of Ghana's UGSpace repository. The research was carried out by teams from the University of Ghana and the Ghana Health Service's Dodowa Health Research Centre. It is a door-to-door survey of 65,177 people in 13,985 households in the Shai-Osudoku and Ningo-Prampram districts of Greater Accra, with every case confirmed by specialists, plus a comparison of 366 people with epilepsy and 312 people without it. The rates describe the sample in these two districts only; the researchers say they are not a national estimate. Risk factors were reported from memory and show links, not proof of cause, and some seizures may have been missed, so the true rate may be higher. It is a research signal, not a full national survey.