Dubbed “Mass Vaccination Plan for VPD Outbreaks”, the initiative, which is the country’s first general plan for mass immunisation outbreaks of VPDs, aims to reduce morbidity, mortality and disability associated with VPD through the provision of high quality immunisation services during VPD outbreaks.

It would also improve the coverage of immunisation services and timeliness of a national response to VPD outbreaks.

The Director of the Public Health Division of the GHS, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, launched the plan in Accra yesterday at a ceremony that also saw the closeout meeting of the COVID-19 International Vaccine Implementation and Evaluation (CIVIE) project established in 2020 to support countries to effectively introduce, deploy, manage and evaluate COVID-19 vaccines.

Significance

Dr Asiedu-Bekoe said vaccination was one of the most powerful tools in public health that had saved millions of lives globally, adding that outbreak of VPDs could place tremendous strain on healthcare systems, overwhelm hospitals and deplete resources.

He said most of those diseases had the potential to cause significant illnesses, disability and even death if left unchecked.

Some VPDs that had threatened the world, including Ghana, are smallpox, whooping cough, tetanus and yellow fever.

“Smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in human history, claimed millions of lives. Survivors often carried disfigurement and blindness, enduring a lifelong burden.

“In Ghana, diseases such as measles, polio, whooping cough, tetanus and yellow fever previously claimed the lives of children in alarming proportions and left others with permanent disabilities.

“We need to look back in history to understand the devastation caused by vaccine-preventable diseases so we can understand and appreciate how far we have come,” the director added.

Plan

Dr Asiedu-Bekoe said that having a national plan with standardised operating procedures already developed would shorten response time and mitigate disease spread.

He said the plan provided clear actionable steps of ensuring equitable access to vaccines, efficient data management and training of health staff, as well as safety measures and miscommunication activities.

“The success of this plan rests on our collective effort - public health officials, healthcare workers, community leaders, fathers and mothers.

“Each of us has a role to play to ensure that diseases which are preventable through vaccines remain a thing of the past,” the director said.

Providing a background to the development of the plan, the Programme Manager of Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, said during the implementation of the CIVIE project, some documents were produced, and the Mass Vaccination Plan for VPDs outbreaks was part of them.

Content

The manager said the content of the plan was developed using lessons learned from previous mass vaccination campaigns in response to VPDs, and in particular, the experience from the COVID-19 response.

“The plan is anchored on the principles of equity, integration, inclusivity, sustainability, accountability, and community engagement and ownership,” he added.

The Deputy Director of Disease Surveillance Department of the GHS, Dr Dennis Laryea, also expressed optimism that healthcare workers and other stakeholders would find the plan useful.

For her part, the Director, Global Health Security Programme of US CDS, Dr Danielle Barradas, said mass vaccination campaigns had helped to prevent, control and eliminate diseases that once posed a severe threat to public health.