Parents Plead for CSM Vaccination of Students

An appeal has been made to the health authorities to move quickly to vaccinate students in senior high schools (SHS) across the Upper East Region against cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM).

This comes on the heels of the death from the suspected disease of a 16-year-old year two student of the Bolgatanga SHS.

The boy was said to have complained of headache and was rushed to the hospital, where he passed on.

The family is yet to be told of the cause of his death by doctors.

Madam Mavis Anyinatou, mother of the deceased, however, asked that steps were taken to give protection to students by vaccinating them against the infection.

She complained about congestion in the Bolgatanga SHS and said this combined with poor ventilation in the dormitories was making things worse for the students.

“For now, we cannot tell whether he died of CSM or not and we are not blaming anybody.”

Dr. Winfred Ofosu, the Regional Director of Health Services, confirmed to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the region had recorded four cases of the disease.

He added that they had put it under surveillance “so that we do not get an epidemic”.

Responding to the call to vaccinate students, he said they could not order for a vaccine, when they had not identified the exact germ that was causing the disease.

Dr. Ofosu urged students to report immediately to any nearest health facility whenever they felt sick with headache or fever.

He added that the Ghana Health Service acting together with the Centre for Disease Control would conduct a study – to look at the carriage rate of pneumococcal bacteria among the population in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

Upper East usually records high number of CSM cases and sometimes outright outbreak of the disease during the months of February, March and April when the weather is dry and warm.

Source: GNA