He asked that the needed logistics were made available to enable health workers and volunteers to reach children in all communities across the country. His plea comes as the nation joined the rest of the globe to celebrate this year’s World Immunization Week.

The event is marked annually to put a spotlight on the importance of children’s immunization and the role this could play in the achievement of the sustainable development goals.  This year’s celebration is being held under the theme “Vaccines work”.  Mr. Asubonteng said more needed to be done to overcome the challenges of inadequate transport and bad roads that had been restricting immunization coverage.

He also spoke of the need for the people including community leaders to show strong commitment and interest in the activity. It should not be lost on anybody that immunization was critical to the protection of people against infections that could cause illness, disability and even death, he added. He indicated that between two and million deaths were prevented every year through immunization.

A total of 213,007 children under one year, out of the targeted figure of 216,249, in the region, were immunized against whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis ‘B’, haemophilus influenza type ‘B’ and diphtheria, last year.

That, he said, represented a coverage of 98.5 per cent.

Mr. Asubonteng announced that for this year, they were aiming to reach 221,321 children and had put in place appropriate strategies to hit the target.This involves combining the creation of more outreach points with increased collaboration with community leaders and the Information Service Department (ISD).