The Asunafo South District Health Directorate would use a total of about 2,5769 dozes of Oral Polio Vaccines (OPVs) for the second round of the 2014 immunization against Polio that would take place in the District between Thursday 30th October, to Saturday 1st November, 2014.
The exercise, which forms part of the National Immunization Day (NID) and Expanded Programme Immunization (EPI), would target children age zero to five years.
The District EPI Cordinator, Mr Adjei Mensah Razak, disclosed this at a day’s Training Programme for staff of the various health facilities at the second round of the NID training, at Kukuom in the Asunafo South District of the Brong Ahafo.
[contextly_sidebar id=”fzc8et2fqzDk8y5A8xtCE7JjWz1klVGh”]He said though the District achieved 109% during the first round of the immunization, most teams did not remind care givers about the key messages of the exercise.
He said more than 176 volunteers will be spread across the District to move from house to house to vaccinate a total of the 24542 children and give additional Vitamin A supplement to about 22088 children between the ages of six months and five years.
Giving more detail on the rational for the programme Mr Mensah Razak said the round two of the immunization was to maintain Ghana’s gains towards Polio eradication and halt the transmission in the sub-region
He observed that since November 2008 to date Ghana has not recorded any wild Polio virus case despite the fact that some countries close to Ghana have experienced outbreaks of the disease.
This situation he attributed to the very vibrant Polio immunization strategies adopted by the Ghana Health Service which includes a strong routine immunization, national immunization day campaign, Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) surveillance and mop up immunization programme.
The District Health Director Ms Joana Domitilla Debpuur commended all stakeholders for their support during the first round and urged them to rekindle their effort to deal a final blow to the disease.
She however advised the participants to devise convenient means of reaching inaccessible areas within their catchment areas since every child under five years needs to be covered.
Ms Domitilla Debpuur therefore cautioned the team members against repeating the minor mistakes they made during the first round.
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Credit: Emmanuel Yaw Acheampong/ISD