The North Regional Directorate of Ghana Health Service is out to immunize about One Hundred and Twenty Thousand One Hundred and Eight (120,108) children under five years of age across the region.
Two hundred and thirty one (231) volunteers and ninety (90) supervisors at various levels have been recruited to conduct the exercise starting today Thursday, September 1 and Sunday September 4, 2022.
The North East Regional Director of GHS, Dr Abukari Abdulai at a media engagement on Wednesday (August 31, 2022) said the vaccines and other logistics have been moved to all municipal and districts and all is set for the campaign.
He indicated the strategy adopted to get all eligible children immunized in every household and encouraged all stakeholders to support in the awareness creation drive, motivate the participation of Care Givers and the benefits of the immunization exercise.
He disclosed one case of polio of virus was detected in 2019 in the Chereponi district and the main objective of the campaign is to stop transmission of the Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Virus Type2 (cVDPV2).
The GHS Director added the exercise also aims at Strengthening Surveillance on polio disease and prevent further polio outbreaks in the country.
“We therefore believe that with the support of all stakeholders the Polio vaccination Campaign in the region will be a success.”
Dr Abdulai noted that the major objective of the Polio Endgame Plan is to eradicate all forms of polio viruses in the world.
“If a population is fully immunized, they will be protected against all forms of polioviruses. Let me indicate here that outbreaks of vaccine derived poliovirus can be stopped with 2 to 3 rounds of supplementary vaccination activities that would boost the immunity levels of the children” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, poliomyelitis is a disease which causes paralysis of the limbs especially the lower limbs and can even lead to death. The disease is caused by the Polio virus.
The mode of transmission is by ingestion of food and water contaminated with faecal matter of an infected person.
However, prevention is by immunization of children under five years old with Oral Polio vaccine or the Inactivated Polio Vaccine injection (IPV).
