The four-day national immunization exercise
against measles organised by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for children entered its second day on Thursday with a visit by health official to
vaccination points.
The exercise aims to vaccinate children between the ages of nine months to five years not only to prevent attacks from measles which is one of the six killer diseases among children, but also to break the transmission of the disease.
Measles, a dangerous disease which kills children, is caused by a small germ called the measles virus, which comes with symptoms such as fever, skin rashes, running nose and cough.
The effect of measles on children presents very devastating complications, including brain problems, blindness, deafness, diarrhoea and
sore throat leading to malnutrition and pneumonia.
However, it costs less than GH�2.00 together with Vitamin �A� supplement to save a child�s life from the dreadful effect of the disease and even death, according the health experts.
The Vice President, John Dramani Mahama launched the 2010 National Mass Measles Vaccination campaign in Accra last week as part of efforts to help free all children in the country from the scourge of the disease.
The nationwide exercise, scheduled for November 3 - November 6, is aimed at reaching about 4.5 million children aged between nine months and five years, which is approximately 17 per cent of the population.
The children would also have doses of supplements of Vitamin �A�, to boost their immune system for better protection against other diseases.
Vice President Mahama appealed to parents, especially mothers, community and opinion leaders, to send their children to designated centres for vaccination.
He noted that in the past measles, apart from malaria, was the number one killer of children.
However, with effective immunisation programmes the scenario has changed for the better as Ghana has not recorded a single case of death as a result of measles in the past eight years.
During the exercise, health workers carrying out the vaccination would be located at fixed and temporary sites, including public and private health facilities, schools, churches, mosques and in other institutions as additional posts.
Mobile fixed teams, which would stay in areas for as long as would be required to complete the task, would also be utilised to ease access to hard-to-reach areas.