ASHANTI REGION LAUNCHES MASS POLIO VACCINATION CAMPAIGN: 1,042,361 CHILDREN TARGETED

The Ashanti Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service has today launched Novel Oral Poliomyelitis (Polio Vaccine) campaign round one under the theme: “Kick polio out of Ghana” starting from 17th to 20th October, 2024

Polio (Poliomyelitis) mainly affects children under 5 years of age, one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralyzed, 5- 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized, and in some instances the child is unable to move certain limbs, also called paralysis, even into adulthood affecting the quality of life and at times the potential for other activities

Briefing the media, Dr Fred Adomako Boateng, the Ashanti Health Director of the Ghana Health Service said although they have been able to address the wild types of polioviruses in the environment, they have not yet achieved their major objective of the polio endgame plan to eradicate all forms of polioviruses, our agenda of eradicating polio is in jeopardy with current happening of outbreaks of vaccine derived poliovirus, he added

According to Dr Fred, on 6th of September 2024, the Ghana Health Service was notified of a confirmed cVDPV2 isolate from the Koforidua Environmental Surveillance sites (ES) by the world Health Organization (WHO) Regional Polio Reference Laboratory at Network Manager Interactive Reporting dashboard (NMIMR), he explained