Bolgatanga, May 22, GNA - Dr James S. K. Akpablie, the Deputy Director of Public Health Service in charge of the Upper East Region, has said there was a need for the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Port Health Unit to collaborate to deal with infectious diseases carried by people at the border towns and those entering the country. Dr Akpablie said this during a Micro Planning Supervisors Training Workshop for health workers who are to supervise immunization against polio in all the nine districts of the region scheduled to take begin on May 25 and end on May 30. He said many of the diseases in Ghana were carried by people from the border towns such as Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger and Nigeria. Dr Akpablie said when Ghana was about to be declared polio free, the disease resurfaced again and blamed the situation on poor supervision of the health status of foreigners at border towns by the Health Port Units.

He said most of the workers of the Health Port were not properly trained and would need more qualified health personnel to be attached to them to help detect people carrying infectious diseases. Dr. Akpablie appealed to health workers engaged in the exercise to view it as a national assignment entrusted to them and be committed to the exercise by ensuring that all children under five years were immunized against polio. He said Nigerian, Burkina Faso and Togo were synchronizing with Ghana in the immunization exercise.