Mass polio vaccination starts today

The Ghana Health Service would from Today, Thursday Sep 18, 2014 begin vaccinating more than 500,000 children under five years against poliomyelitis, the virus-causing crippling, disease in the Western Region. The exercise would be carried out nationwide simultaneously to consolidate the country’s success rate over the polio virus, which was last reported in Ghana in 2001. The Western Regional Deputy Director of Public Health, Dr. Kofi Asemanyi-Mensah, told journalists at a press briefing ahead of the exercise that, volunteers had been trained to visit households to dispense polio vaccines to 90 children per day. He said the aim of the house-to-house campaign was to enable traders and individuals who might not be able to send their children to a designated centre to have them vaccinated. He said the first phase of this year's National Immunization programme would be held between Thursday, September 18 and Saturday, October 2, while the second phase would come off between October 30 and November 1, this year. He said the region had been allocated GH¢500, 000 towards the immunization campaign and, therefore, entreated the media to support the efforts of the Ghana Health Service to create awareness and sensitize the public to avail their children of the vaccination. Dr. Mensah noted that although Ghana was not one of the polio endemic countries, the exercise formed part of a synchronized immunization programme in West Africa because Nigeria remained polio endemic in the Sub-region. He said the World Health Organization annually spent one billion US dollars worldwide on polio campaigns in an effort to eradicate the virus, which mostly paralyzed its victims. Meanwhile some primary schools in Tamale saw most volunteers who were trained in vaccinating the pupil at various schools rendering services to the school pupils. 

Source: GW