Dr Mrs Joan Awunyo-Akaba, Executive Director, FUGI, said this at a meeting to end one year’s Pfizer Childhood Immunization Support Project in the Ho Municipality.She said though the project has largely been a success, some children were still “missing” on the immunization register because their mothers could not avail them for immunization.

Dr Awunyo-Akaba said by roping in the day care teachers, parents and guardians could be reminded on the importance of continuing immunization through Parent Teacher Association meetings, ensuring that no child was missed on the register.

The Ho Municipality is said to record the lowest number of immunized children nationally, sparking controversy on the “availability of such children”.Dr Awunyo-Akaba said the population dynamics on projected births was not helping to achieve the immunization target in Ho, saying “there are some towns where for three years, there has been no new births”.

She said data gathering on health-related issues is a major challenge, especially in hard-to-reach communities, making it easier to miss some children in the immunization exercise.Dr Awunyo-Akaba lauded the communal involvement in some communities through traditional leadership and collaboration leading to a successful end of programme and called for more volunteers to help augment the work of community health nurses.

Dr Senanu K. Djokoto, Ho Municipal Director, Ghana Health Services, said one of the challenges facing the Municipality was immunization coverage but it is working with the World Health Organization (WHO) on coverage survey to properly map out the population projection.

He said there is collaboration between the Ghana Health Service and NGOs in the health sector to get every child immunized against childhood killer diseases and avoid preventable deaths.

Dr Djokoto said the directorate is also training some staff on proper vaccine administration.