POLIO-FREE PROGRAMME SUFFERS SETBACK (D/G Monday October 20, 2008.PAGE 32)

GHANA’S quest to become a polio-free society has been hit by a setback following the detection of a wild polio virus in the Yendi District of the Northern Region.
The case was detected last Thursday, October 9, 2008 and presently a team of officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) is in the district to conduct further investigations.
The Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr John Koku Awoonor-Williams, who disclosed this in Bolgatanga at the launch of this year’s Integrated Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) campaign, said, “If confirmed, Ghana’s programme to eradicate polio would have suffered a severe drawback for a few more years.”
He said prior to the detection of the virus in the Yendi District, the nation was poised for the final push to attain polio eradication.
“Ghana was on the verge of certification as a polio-free country and, therefore, news of the emergence of the virus is unfortunate,” he said.
In 1988, the World Health Assembly passed Resolution WHA 41.28, which committed the WHO to the global eradication of polio by the year 2000 by providing immunisation exclusively with oral polio vaccine (OPV).
Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. It can strike at any age, but mainly affects children under five through contaminated water.
The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs).
Among those paralysed, 5–10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised. Although paralysis is the most visible sign of polio infection, fewer than one per cent of polio infections ever result in paralysis.
Since September 2003 there has not been any reported case of wild polio virus (WPV) in Ghana, mainly due to the successful National Immunisation Day campaigns and improved routine immunisation.
According to Dr Awoonor-Williams, in spite of all that, the threat of polio importation persisted and Ghana could not be left out of that threat.
He said as of December 31, 2007, only 367 WPV cases had been confirmed in five countries, including Nigeria, DR Congo, Angola, Chad and Niger, showing a 70 per cent case reduction in the total number of cases reported in 2006.
He said as of March 5, 2008, 37 WPV cases had been confirmed in four countries in the Africa Region — 32 in Nigeria, three in Niger, three in Angola and one in Chad.
The Regional Director of Health Services said based on those threats, there was an urgent need to step up maternal and child health campaigns.
Launching the campaign, Dr Awoonor-Williams called on all municipal and district assemblies, heads of households, chiefs and opinion leaders to help mobilise their communities for a successful programme.
The nation-wide campaign, to be held from October 16-18, is on the theme, “Healthy mothers and children make a better Ghana”.
In the Upper East Region, a total of 550,123 children under five will receive polio vaccination, Vitamin A supplementation and de-worming treatment, while long-lasting insecticide-treated nets will be provided for children less than one.
Again, 40,750 pregnant mothers will be de-wormed and given vitamin A supplementation.
UNICEF, World Vision International and the Red Cross Society are assisting the GHS towards the success of the programme in the Upper East Region.
UNICEF has committed GH¢13,000 to the effort towards the training of community-based agents, in addition to the provision of 40,000 insecticide-treated nets for distribution freely to children under the age of one.