By Christabel Addo
Accra, Aug. 31, GNA – The Ghana Health Service (GHS), is set to commence the first of two rounds of the national polio immunisation campaigns from Thursday, September 4 to Sunday, September 7, 2022, targeting all children under five years.
Dr. Kwame Amponsah Achiano, the Programme Manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunization, GHS, said this, would be followed by a second round of polio vaccine doses from October 6 to October 9, 2022.
Dr Achiano gave the outline of this year’s campaign at the launch of the National Immunisation Day (NID) by the Ministry of Health and GHS in Accra on Wednesday, on the theme: “Kick Polio out of Ghana. Vaccinate your Child Now” and targeted at 6.3 million (about 92 per cent) children under age five.
He said polio was a crippling and infectious viral disease, and explained that the intensive crusade was to break the transmission of all types of poliovirus threats against children, as there had been new polio events and outbreaks in the country.
“If a population is fully immunized against polio, it will be protected against both wild polio and Circulating Vaccine Derived Poliovirus type Two (CVDPV-2), hence the campaign would run throughout the 261 districts,” he said.
Dr Achiano said as part of the preparedness, the Service was collaborating with some Telecommunication Organisations to provide education on the campaign as a reminder to customers, organised regional press briefings, commenced social mobilization for sustained community awareness creation, shared data management tools, and developed a dashboard for monitoring “pre-, intra- and post-campaign” activities.
He called on all Ghanaians, especially mothers and caregivers, to support the global efforts towards polio eradication by making their children, available to designated health facilities, mobile teams, Community Health Nurses and well-trained Volunteers among other identifiable health care personnel, for vaccination.
He further solicited the support of stakeholders including traditional, community and religious leaders, civil society groups, the Media, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDCs), all Agencies and Health Partners for its success.
Dr Francis Kasolo, the WHO Country Representative, said there had been tremendous global reduction in cases of wild polio since 1998, when the records were as high as 350,000 in 125 countries, but now, the records showed a reduction to about six cases, with only two countries- Pakistan and Afghanistan, still battling with the disease.
He also indicated that some countries in WHO Africa region still suffered intermittent record of polio infections such as the CVDPV-2, despite the continent’s certification as polio free, and this was due to globalization, poor environmental hygiene and water.
Dr Kasolo said the only strategy to overcome these intermittent outbreaks was through NIDs, and the Novel CVDPV-2 vaccine had been proven effective for protection against all other types of polioviruses.
He acknowledged the sustained support of all health partners and stakeholders over the years, but encouraged them to sustain the fight until when the two endemic countries would be freed from the virus, to ensure total global safety from polio for good.
GNA