The Biakoye District Health Directorate is hoping to attain a 95% coverage in a 4-day Round Two Polio Vaccination campaign in the Oti Region.

About 16,115 children under 5 years are expected to receive a dose of the Polio Vaccine (mOPV) in the district during the campaign which commenced on 5th February and ends on 8th February 2020. 

However, some parents ignorantly prevent their children from receiving the vaccine, hereby affecting the success of the campaign.

Due to this, the Biakoye District Director of the Ghana Health Services, Rita Wurapah-Abudey is pleading with such parents to allow their children to be vaccinated to make them immune against the poliovirus. 

She detailed that the polio vaccine has been tried, tested and approved over the years, hence would have no side effect(s) on the health of the children. 

”Few mothers are refusing their children to receive the vaccine. The vaccine has been tested and tried and it has proven to very effective and efficient, that is why it is being administered.”

”So I am encouraging every parent to allow their children to receive the vaccine”, she stressed.

Madam Wurapah-Abudey stated that 62 teams made up of 178 personnel have been deployed to undertake the exercise in the district which had demarcated into 6 sub-districts ”for easy access”. 

”18 supervisors, district and sub-district coordinators, and 7 vaccine accountability monitors are also on the field”, she added. 

The Biakoye District Director further stated that the district health directorate has put adequate measures to extend the vaccination exercise to all hard to reach communities to achieve the targeted 95% coverage. 

”Because of the population and terrain in the 38 overbank communities, we have deployed a team to go and stay there. They will spend about 7 days there working to ensure all children in the age bracket receive the vaccine.”

The mass reactive vaccination exercise was necessitated by the detection of polio cases in the Nkwanta North and Krachi Nchumuru Districts. 

This is in line with the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recommendation for 3 rounds of oral polio vaccine to be administered to eligible children in a mass vaccination campaign in the affected region, to prevent the possible re-emergence of the child killer disease in Ghana.