Polio Type Two vaccination begins in Ghana on Wednesday

This exercise which is under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), will start from Wednesday, September 11, to Saturday, September 14, this year.

This has become necessary after a positive case of polio virus was detected in environmental samples in Accra.

Polio case recorded in the Northern Region

Before this, a two-year-old girl tested positive to the Type Two polio virus in Chereponi in the Northern Region in July.

The Deputy Programme Manager of the EPI, John Frederick Dadzie, told the Daily Graphic that the case detected in Greater Accra was similar to the one found in environmental samples in Tamale in July this year.

He further explained that considering the results the EPI thought to urgently carry out the immunisation exercise in the Greater Accra Region once there was a positive case in environmental samples circulating in Accra to protect children against the virus.

The areas covered in the first exercise in the Northern Region were Chereponi, Bumkurugu, Gushegu, Saboba, Tamale, and Sagnarigu.

The exercise — which was Round Zero of Three Rounds of Polio Immunisation — was the immediate response by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and its partners to the cases that had been detected recently.

Immunisation in the Northern parts

Mr Dadzie said that the first round of the exercise in the northern parts would come off in October 2019 and would target children between the same age group living in the entire Northern, Savannah and Upper East regions.

He added that round two would come off in November and would cover the Northern, Savannah and Upper East regions again.

"Then early next year, there are plans to immunise all children in the country between ages two and four who missed protection against the Type Two polio when Ghana switched from Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) to Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV). This will be the round three of the exercise," he said.

Polio Type Two vaccination begins in Ghana on Wednesday

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