By: Seraphine Nyuiemedi
The Volta Regional Health Directorate has launched its vaccination campaign against polio for children under five years.
The first phase will enable children under five years to get vaccinated from September 1 to September 4.
The Volta Regional Acting Director of Health, Dr. Senanu Kwesi Djokoto said about 73 percent of children in the Region are vaccinated against the virus.
He added that until about 95 children under five are vaccinated to reach head immunity, the Region is at risk of recording the virus.
Polio is a disease that can kill or cripple infected persons for the rest of their lives. A total of 3,023 health workers and volunteers have been deployed to carry out the exercise in the Volta Region.
Dr. Senanu Kwesi Djokoto said the target is to vaccinate about 380,000 children.
He urged parents and guardians to ensure that their children under the age of 5 are vaccinated during the exercise.
“Every parent should be concerned because usually, there is no treatment for it, it’s irreversible, if your child gets paralysed your child is paralysed forever. So you have to take every effort to ensure that you boost the immunity of your child”.
“We do not have the ideal vaccination coverage for polio in the region. 95 percent of our children are supposed to be vaccinated, but as we speak now, only 73 percent are vaccinated, that means that we are vulnerable, we are at risk as compared to other areas where vaccination coverages are high. So as responsible parents and people within the region and our communities what we ought to do is to protect every single child, we shouldn’t create the avenue for the virus to penetrate”.
Mr Djokoto explained that the enabling environment for the virus to be transmitted still exists because the region is yet to attain the ideal sanitary environment status.
“Polio strives in areas where sanitation conditions are not the best. We have made good progress in the Volta Region in terms of sanitation, our Assemblies and all stakeholders have worked really hard but, we have still not gotten to a point where we have the ideal sanitary conditions, so the enabling environment for the virus to still to be transmitted still exists, so we really have to work hard to ensure that between Thursday 1st September and Sunday 4th September, all the 380,000 children in Volta Region are vaccinated against polio”.
He called on the media and other relevant stakeholders to support and create awareness for the vaccination campaign.
The exercise is being held across the country.