The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says more children were vaccinated than targeted during the first round of the 2022 polio immunisation exercise, held in September.
Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, the Manager of Expanded Programme on Immunisation, GHS, said though the Service exceeded its target, a few children could not partake in the exercise.
At a press briefing in Accra, he said the exercise achieved complete coverage in almost all regions, with a few achieving between 80 to 95 per cent depending on certain circumstances encountered.
Polio is a vaccine-preventable disease that causes paralysis and death. The polio virus enters the body through water or food contamination with faeces containing the virus.
The virus affects both children and adults but children under-five years are most at risk.
In all 16 regions, 261 districts were covered with 6,558,459 children under-five years being vaccinated instead of the 6,298,330 targeted, representing 104.1 per cent.
Dr Amponsah-Achiano said the exercise encountered some challenges such as low caregiver awareness of the campaign, fading of finger marking in some of the districts after 24 hours, and heavy rains, which washed away some of the house markings.
He expressed worry over the failure of parents and caregivers in availing their children to be immunised, which would put those children at risk of polio infection, leading to an outbreak.
“The new Polio outbreak started in the West African sub-region in 2016 and Ghana got an outbreak in 2019 with two new cases in 2022,” he added.
Dr Amponsa-Achiano said the GHS would use dialogue and every other means to reach and convince parents, who refuse to avail their children for the exercise.
The second round of the polio vaccination for children under-five years starts from Thursday, October 6, to Sunday, October 9, 2022, targeting an approximately 6.9 million children.
The GHS had improved on its preparations for the second round in social mobilisation, maintaining strategies, while district reorientation was ongoing with jingles in local languages, as well as bulk social media messages for public awareness.
Dr Patrick Kumah Aboagye, the Director-General, GHS, said the objective of the campaign was to stop the local transmission of the polio virus, maintain high population immunity, strengthen surveillance on the disease and prevent further outbreak in the country.
He said despite the achievement, some districts were not equitably covered, hence efforts were geared towards reaching every child.
“Every child must be covered to achieve the full objectives,” he said.
“We must build on the achievement and do more during the upcoming second round of the polio campaign so that no child is left behind.”
Dr Aboagye urged the public to observe personal hygiene and good sanitation practices, including washing hands regularly with soap under running water and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
He cautioned the public on the appropriate disposal of human waste, avoiding open defecation, and cleaning toilets and surfaces contaminated with faeces with disinfectants.
The Director-General said Polio had no cure but could be prevented through immunisation, good hygiene and best sanitation practices.
He encouraged parents and caregivers of children under five years to continue attending child welfare clinics to ensure that their children received the necessary vaccines and other packages of interventions that promoted healthy childhood.
“We request parents and caregivers to ensure that their children complete all vaccinations by the time they are two years old to protect them against vaccine preventable diseases,” he added.
