Sam Adjei
Sam Adjei was a leading public health figure in Ghana.
Adjei was born in Accra, which was then part of what was called the Gold Coast Colony. As a child Adjei suffered from polio which caused him to walk with a limp. He received his early schooling from Prempeh College in Kumasi. He received his degree in medicine from the University of Ghana in 1976. In 1979 he became one of the ten district health officials of Ghana. He later went to the United Kingdom to study at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In 1983 Adjei was given the new government position of Senior Medical Officer for Public Health. In this position he developed programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases as well as leprosy, schistosomiasis, and malaria. In 1990 he under took to create a system for health research in Ghana. In 2000 he was made the Deputy Director General of the Ghana Health Service. After retiring from the government in 2007, he founded the Centre for Health and Social Services.
Adjei died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital from cancer in 2016.
