2m Children To Get Polio Vaccines

About 2 million children are to be immunized against polio virus type 2 in a nationwide inactive polio vaccine (IPV) immunization campaign.

The campaign is commencing from February 19 to February 25, 2020 by the Ghana Health Service.

Out of the number, 24,137 children are expected to be vaccinated in the Western and Western North regions alone.

Ghana switched from the use of trivalent oral polio vaccine (topv) to bivalent oral polio vaccine (bopv) in April 2016, without introducing the inactive polio vaccine (IPV) until June 2018 as a result of global IPV shortage.

There is currently over 2 million children in the country who do not have protection against the polio virus type 2 hence the catch-up campaign targeting these children to increase population immunity against the type 2 of the polio virus.

Nicholas Adomako Asare, Project Coordinator, Expanded Programme on Immunization in the Western Region, said at a media briefing that the campaign was aimed at ensuring that children are better protected from all forms of polio viruses and also to increase immunity of children in the age group.

He mentioned that in the past one and half years, Ghana and some African countries have had challenges with polio virus type two outbreaks.

“If the children are fully immunized, the country will be protected from the circulated polio viruses,” he said.

According to him, all children born in 2016, 2017 and in the month of January and February 2018 would be the primary targets.

He appealed to the media to help create awareness of the campaign and to inform the public about the benefits of the campaign. He also urged them to motivate parents and caregivers to allow their little children to be immunized.