NID Second Round Takes Off (page 11)

FIFTY thousand volunteers have been engaged to move from house to house to immunise about five million children throughout the country, under the second round of the National Immunisation Days (NIDs) exercise.
In that direction, personnel of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) under the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said they were ready to start the exercise which is against poliomyelitis (polio) and scheduled for March 26 to 28, 2009.
The first round of the exercise took place between February 12 and 14 this year where every child under five years was immunised.
Briefing the Minister of Health, Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, in his office at the weekend, the Programme Manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), Dr Kwadwo Antwi-Agyei, said the latest immunisation exercise was in response to the detection of eight polio cases in the Northern Region suspected to have been imported from the Republic of Benin.
Dr Antwi-Agyei stated that the doses that would be given to targeted children during the NIDs, would be additional doses of polio vaccines that every child under-five years should receive even if the child had already been immunised. He explained that it did not replace routine immunisation.
The exercise became necessary following detection of eight wild polio virus cases in the country between August and November last year. The situation made the Ministry of Health (MoH) and its development partners to organise the two-round of a nationwide polio immunisation.
Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus. The polio virus attacks the nerve cells that control muscle movements. Many people infected with the virus have few or no symptoms. Others have short-term symptoms, such as headache, tiredness, fever, stiff neck and back, and muscle pain.
More serious problems happen when the virus invades nerves in the brain and causes paralysis of the muscles used in swallowing and breathing. Invasion of the nerves in the spinal cord can cause paralysis of the arms, legs, or trunk.
Symptoms usually start seven to 14 days after exposure to the virus. Infected persons are most contagious from a few days before to a few days after the start of symptoms.
However, persons with polio can spread the infection for as long as the virus is in their throat or stool. The virus can be found in the throat for about one week after infection and in the stool for six weeks or longer.
Ghana had had a polio-free period from September 2003 to August 2008 before the eight cases were reported.
Speaking to journalists at the beginning of the first round, Dr Antwi-Agyei took the opportunity to remind parents, care-givers and guardians to make sure that their children under five years received two drops of polio vaccine each during the period and also endeavour to send their children for routine vaccination as well.
The NIDs are organised by the GHS with support from the WHO, UNICEF, Centre for Disease Control, Ghana National Polio Plus Committee of Rotary International and JICA, among others.