Dr. Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has scheduled a nationwide vaccination exercise for children under five years against polio starting tomorrow, November 21, 2024.
Director Public Health, Dr. Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, speaking on behalf of the Director General, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said about 7.2 million children have been targeted to benefit from the exercise.
He said this during the media briefing on the Second Round National Polio Vaccination Campaign, themed, “Help Kick Polio Out Of Ghana.”
He noted that through the GHS efforts, “we successfully achieved near-universal coverage after exceeding our target of vaccinating over six million children under five years old in the first round,” he stated.
Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe said the GHS is actively collaborating with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to ensure every child is vaccinated to combat polio.
Programmes Manager, Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said the outbreak of polio variants can be stopped with two to three rounds of supplementary vaccination activities to boost immunity levels of children.
He said the main objective for the Round Two Polio Campaign is to prevent transmission of poliovirus variant type 2, strengthen surveillance on polio disease and prevent polio outbreak in the country.
He said trained health officers would go round to administer the vaccine, adding that the vaccine is free and safe.
Cholera Update
Giving a recent update on the case of cholera in an interview with the media, Dr. Asiedu-Bekoe mentioned that, the review of the case trajectory shows a consistent decrease, demonstrating a progress in mitigating the spread of the disease.
“Though we are getting cases, they are not severe as compared to when the public did not know the treatment was free, and I think for the past one week, we have not had any deaths,” he said.
He urged the public to wash their hands clean with soap under running water, keep their environment clean, put a stop to eating contaminated foods and open defecation.
By Janet Odei Amponsah