Accra, Oct. 30, GNA – Defence Against AIDS Poverty and Underdevelopment (DAAPU) and its partners NIYEL West Africa, has called on the Ghana government and other stakeholders to urgently commit more resources to health authorities for child immunization.
A joint statement copied to the Ghana News Agency by the partners said this would help for adequate procurement and timely delivery of vaccines for increased immunization uptake.
It said the WHO Africa Region was certified free of wild poliovirus (WPV) in August 2020, however, in February 2022, Malawi declared an outbreak of wild polio, highlighting the need to focus on surveillance and vaccine demand creation if wild polio still existed in the world.
It stated that in addition, cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus 2 (cVDPV2) continued to cause outbreaks in countries across Africa and that although Ghana had not experienced cVDPV2 outbreaks since 2021, yet the country remained vulnerable to reinfection and accordingly must continue initiatives to create vaccine demand.
The statement encouraged the media, religious bodies, traditional authorities, community-based organisations, opinion leaders and other civil society organisations to support the clarion call since government alone cannot solely fund the immunization.
It urged parents and caregivers to take the expected action by taking all children under five years to health facilities to access vaccines on routine basis while encouraging facilities to be child friendly and that health officers must play their part by remaining active in always providing expected quality support.
The statement said as World Polio Day was observed on October 24, 2023, with the theme: “Make Polio History,” it reaffirmed commitment to ending polio once and for all, adding; “Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a viral infection that primarily affects children.
“It is a highly contagious disease that can lead to muscle paralysis and, in severe cases, even death. While significant progress has been made in the fight against polio, there are still challenges that demand our attention and action.”
The statement noted that there was no known cure for polio, but prevention was possible through vaccination and good hygiene that prevents faecal-oral transmission.
It stated that in 1988, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio worldwide, leading to the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative led by governments, WHO, Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Thirty-five years later, cases due to Wild poliovirus had fallen by 99.9 per cent from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to just six cases in 2021 in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This was mainly due awareness creation, polio vaccination and continuous polio surveillance (or active look out and reporting) by WHO and many organisations, it said.
GNA