Ghana reports no polio outbreaks this year

From the Daily Guide in Ghana:

Deputy Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Rene Van Dongen said that out of three countries in the West African sub-region, Ghana has not had an outbreak of polio this year.

For this reason, he stressed the need for a high quality campaign aimed at ensuring continuous protection of children in the country.

Mr. Dongen was speaking at the launch and press briefing of the National Integrated Maternal and Child Health Campaign which starts from November 12 to 14. It is on the theme “Healthier Mothers and Children Make A Better Ghana”.

This has been an annual event for the past four years and it brings maternal and child health services to the doorsteps of families and communities at large.

The campaign is designed to run from house-to-house with immunization teams providing Vitamin A supplementation, immunization, de-worming, malaria treatment, weighing and birth registration to all children from birth to five years as well as breastfeeding mothers within eight weeks of delivery. Parents are reminded to take the exercise seriously.

He said close to five million children would be reached with packaged interventions like polio vaccine, Vitamin A and de-worming treatment while another 150, 000 post-partum women would receive Vitamin A supplements.

He also commended the country for developing effective partnership which includes a census on cats and dogs in the campaign where valuable data would be available for use in planning by the Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA).

Mr. Dongen was convinced that “the shift to the house-to-house delivery approach this year will greatly reduce the chances of people in the target group for these services being missed”.

“While campaigns are effective in reaching a high proportion of the target groups with many interventions within a short time, it is important to have an effective and efficient routine system for reaching these population segments”, he added.

A speech read by the Director of Procurement and Supplies at the Health Ministry, Mr. Samuel Boateng on behalf of the sector Minister, Dr. Benjamin Kunbour noted that a developing country like Ghana needed to consistently build its manpower in achieving its development agenda, indicating, “this manpower lies in the children we bring up today”.

“If they are brought up in good health, we can be assured that those who will take over from us in future will be a healthy formidable workforce, who will positively contribute to the nation’s development,” he added.

Mothers, who played such vital roles in child survival, growth and development, the Minister noted was the more reason for this year’s theme.

He acknowledged the progress Ghana had made in reducing the under-five mortality rate from 111/1000 live births in 2003 to 80 as recorded by the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey.

Over the same period, he said the country’s infant mortality rate dropped from 64 to 50/100,000 live births.

These successes notwithstanding, Dr. Kunbour urged that “we as a country still have to intensify our efforts in order to attain the MDG4 target of 40/1000 live births for under-five mortality by 2015”.