Fiapre (B/A), June 10, GNA - Mr. Opoku Agyemang, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Coordinator of the Polio Immunization Programme, has appealed to the government to support public health workers serving in border communities to learn French to facilitate collaboration with their counterparts in neighbouring countries.

He made the appeal after municipal and district health directorates had submitted their reports on the just ended polio immunization exercise at an overview meeting at Fiapre at the weekend. Mr Agyemang said the programme was a collaborative exercise between Ghanaian and Ivorian officials at border communities including Dormaa, Jaman North and South districts.

Mr. Agyemang said Ivorian officials were in charge of some Ghanaian communities whilst the Ghanaians also served some communities in that country and this made the work very difficult due to the language barrier. "The language barrier poses a big challenge to the Ghanaians since they do not understand the French language spoken by both the Ivorian officials and the people", he said.