Ghana Health Service kickstarts Yellow Fever vaccination in five districts  

The Western Regional Health Directorate in collaboration with the Ministry of Health has made the necessary preparations to vaccinate 294,809 targeted people in five selected districts of the Region against Yellow Fever.

The exercise, which excludes expectant mothers, would be executed in the Bodi, Juaboso, Wassa Amenfi West, Wassa Amenfi Central and Wasa Amenfi East Districts of the Western Region from November 28 to December 4, 2018, for people aged between 10-60 years.

Dr Kofi Asemanyi-Mensah, Deputy Regional Director of Public Health, who said this at the regional launch of the 2018 Yellow Fever Sub-national vaccination Campaign, described Yellow Fever as a life threatening disease and urged all in the beneficiary districts to come out in their numbers to be vaccinated.

He said the exercise would be extended to the other districts in the Region next year, but that the five districts were selected due to their high risk and their closeness to La Cote d’ Ivoire, which has recorded frequent outbreaks of yellow fever.

According to him, sub-Saharan Africa was Yellow fever endemic and it was for this reason that the Ministry of Health had taken preventive measures to stem the disease from spreading, adding that the exercise would take place in nine out of the 10 regions of which a total of 5, 364,275 representing 65 percent of the population in the selected regions would be vaccinated.

He said Ghana was also endemic for yellow fever and cases of yellow fever continue to be reported almost every year, which were interspersed with focal outbreaks in spite of high routine infant immunization coverage and selective mass campaigns.

Dr Asemanyi-Mensah said  an estimated 200,000  cases of yellow fever cases with 30,000 deaths occurred  annually  worldwide and  that 85 percent cases  may not show any symptoms or present mild disease  with  15 percent  showing  severe infection of which up to 50 percent maybe fatal.

Source: GNA