The exercise, under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), has become necessary following the detection of a positive case of polio virus in environmental samples in Accra.

It comes after a similar exercise in Chereponi in the Northern Region where a two-year-old girl tested positive to the Type Two polio virus and the detection of the specific polio virus in environmental samples from the Tamale metropolis in the Northern Region last July.

The Deputy Programme Manager of the EPI, Mr John Frederick Dadzie, explained to the Daily Graphic that the case detected was similar to the one found in environmental samples in Tamale in July this year.

He said the EPI felt that there was an urgent need to carry out the immunisation exercise in the Greater Accra Region once there was a positive case in environmental samples circulating in Accra — which is the hub of commercial activity — to protect children against the virus.

The exercise — which was Round Zero of Three Rounds of Polio Immunisation — was the immediate response by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and its partners to the cases that had been detected recently.

Northern parts

Mr Dadzie indicated that round one of the exercise in the northern parts would come off in October this year and would target children between the same age group living in the entire Northern, Savannah and Upper East regions.

Giving an outline of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) immunisation schedule, Mr Dadzie said round two would come off in November and would cover the Northern, Savannah and Upper East regions again.

"Then early next year, there are plans to immunise all children in the country between ages two and four who missed protection against the Type Two polio when Ghana switched from Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) to Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV). This will be the round three of the exercise," he said.

Recall

The Daily Graphic reported on August 27, 2019 that children between zero and 59 months old living in six districts in the country would be vaccinated against polio from September 4 to 7 this year.