Volunteers and parents must be dedicated to Polio immunization

Immunization volunteers and parents in the Tema Metropolis have been called upon to dedicate, and commit themselves to the upcoming National Polio Immunization Exercise to enable the disease to be eradicated from the country.

Mr. Sika Nartey Aggudey, Tema Metropolitan Disease Control Officer, told the media on Monday that the Metropolitan Health Directorate had planned to immunize 78,727 children.

Mr. Aggudey said 309 immunization teams made up of two volunteers each would undertake the exercise and appealed to the volunteers to enter every house and immunize the children aged zero to five years before marking the houses.

He condemned the practice where some volunteers marked houses without entering and immunizing the children in similar exercises.

This year’s exercise, he said, would begin on March 22 and end on March 24, from six in the morning to six in the evening.

Mr. Aggudey stressed the need for parents not to underestimate the immunization exercise since 552 wild polio virus cases had been documented world wide as at November 29 last year.

He said Cote d’Ivoire had 36 cases, while 46 were recorded in Nigeria, exposing Ghana to the virus due to migration.**