The 2014 National Immunization Programme (NIP) started on Thursday with a call on parents to actively get involved by immunizing their children under five years against poliomyelitis as children health needs are paramount.

Dr. Kwaku Agyemeng-Mensah, Minister of Health, called on parents to accord the exercise with all the needed attention by presenting their children to be immunized as well as keeping their environments clean to prevent any sickness befalling their children, especially when children were assets to the state.

He said the exercise which was being carried out nationwide simultaneously would see more than 5.7 million children less than five years being immunized against poliomyelitis.

Briefing the media in Sogakofe in the Volta Region at a symbolic exercise, Dr. Agyemeng-Mensah noted that the exercise would consolidate the country’s success rate over polio virus which was last reported in Ghana in 2001.

“Ghana has not recorded polio for the past six years, except for a temporary setback in 2008 when eight wild polio virus cases were reported, and this shows how all hands are on deck with stakeholders working tirelessly to curb the disease," he said.

The sector minister observed that, volunteers had been trained to visit households to dispense polio vaccines to the targeted children.

He explained that the house-to-house campaign would enable parents who might not be able to send their children to a designated centre due to their busy schedules to have them vaccinated at home.

The first phase of this year’s NIP is scheduled to start between Thursday, September 18 to Saturday, October 2, while the second phase would come off between October 30 and November 1, this year and this according to the minister would be monitored by the National Monitoring Team from the Ghana Health Service head office together with development partners to ensure a sustainable exercise.