The Ghana Health Service has commenced a novel oral polio vaccination exercise in the Ashanti Region following the detection of a Circulating Virus Derived Polio TYPE 2 strain.
The New strain of the polio virus isolated at the New Juabeng Municipality of the Eastern Region in September, has been genetically matched with a type 2 strain found in Algeria.
Disclosing this in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional Health Director Dr. Fred Adomako-Boateng warned that even though Ghana has chalked significant successes containing wild strains of polio; Ghana’s polio eradication campaign could suffer a setback if there is low vaccine uptake and poor sanitation within communities.
“The sequencing results indicates the virus is genetically linked to virus isolates in Algeria. Typically, if it was in Algeria and it’s in Ghana, it means if it’s in the Eastern Region, all children in the country are at risk,” he cautioned.
Announcing a two-part novel Oral Polio Vaccination exercise in the Ashanti Region, Dr Adomako-Boateng was positive the exercise will break the transmission if the service is able to cover a majority of the 1,420,361 million targeted children under five, in the region.
“We had 90 circulating vaccine derived polio virus type two cases since 2019, Round one starts from Thursday 17th September, 20th October 2024 and then the round two will be on the 14th to 17th November,” he stated.
Polio, a highly infectious disease contracted through faecal-oral routes kills one in 200 children affected by the disease and causes paralysis in two to ten percent of affected children.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Ivan Heathcote – Fumador
