Sunyani (B/A), Nov. 9, GNA - A total of 1,573,340 children, representing 98 percent of 1,730,406 targeted for the just ended Integrated Supplementary Immunization exercise in Brong Ahafo were covered.

Briefing the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani, Dr George Bonsu, Deputy Regional Director of Health Service, said Oral Polio Vaccine recorded 506,705 children under the ages of zero to five, out of the target of 557,057, whilst 411,818 children aged nine months to five years were captured for measles. The target was 473,498.

Vitamin 'A' capsules were provided to 459,614 children aged between six months and five years, out of the target of 501,351 whilst 195,203 children under two years, out of a targeted 198,500, received insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Dr Bonsu explained that the regional directorate of health services could not achieve 100 percent coverage in the region due to the recent torrential rainfall at some villages in Kintampo North and Atebubu/Amantin districts.

He said the health personnel found it difficult to cross the swollen water bodies to the affected villages for the exercise but added that the directorate had set up a contingency plan to cover those areas in early December this year.

Dr Bonsu mentioned that prior to the exercise, a committee made up of the Regional Coordinating Council, Ghana Education Service, Red Cross Society, Ghana National Commission on Children, Environmental Protection Agency and Ghana Health Service worked on the plan for the exercise, after which training was given to the personnel.

He said though the exercise had ended, there was the need for nursing mothers to send their children for the routine immunization exercises at the various health centres and advised parents whose children were not covered during the exercise to visit any health centre to get their children immunized.

Dr Bonsu announced that since 2003 the Region had recorded one polio case and 21 suspected cases of measles, of which only one case was confirmed as against 2,000 cases recorded in the previous years. Dr Alhaj Mohammed Bin Ibrahim, Regional Director of Health Services, advised beneficiary mothers not to use the nets as for decoration but to ensure their usage to help curb the outbreak of malaria.

He explained that the directorate had not recorded any adverse effect on children following the exercise, adding that the surveillance team was monitoring to detect any abnormalities among the children immunized.

The Regional Director called for an intensive public education for parents to understand the basis of any immunization programme in the near future.

Dr Ibrahim noted with regret that some mothers refused to send their children for the exercise on hearing that children above the age of two years were not given the bed nets, saying health personnel had to go on the radio to appeal to such parents to participate in the exercise.