Archives Latest news

Nationwide yellow fever vaccination exercise to begin on Thursday for one week

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will from Thursday, November 12 begin a national yellow fever vaccination exercise, lasting until November 18, 2020.

The 7 day exercise would target persons aged age 10-60 years and excludes pregnant women.

In the Northern Region, 13 Districts would be covered by the fellow fever immunization teams and it excludes Gushegu, Saboba and Kpandai that were earlier beneficiaries.

Deputy Northern Regional Director of health services in charge of Public Health, Dr. Hilarious Abiwu who announced this at a media briefing in Tamale said though Ghana has not recorded any yellow fever since 2012, there had been suspected cases in parts of the country lately hence the vaccination to serve as a precautionary measure.

Yellow fever is a disease caused by a virus and transmitted from person to person. Typically, people who get it, develop jaundice with yellow eyes and about half of those who get infected, die. There is no cure, but the only intervention is immunization.

According to Dr. Abiwu, most parts of Africa and South America are prone to the disease hence the vaccination which is a lifetime measure according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 “The good thing about yellow fever is we have an effective vaccine and so anybody who takes the vaccination is protected for life. If you take it today by a month, you’ll have developed immunity. Persons who take the shot will be given a yellow fever card and it’s free” the Deputy Regional Health Services Director added.

The northern region is targeting 13 districts  and about 65 percent of the total population in the 16 districts, that is about 1 million and 690 thousand persons will be covered.”

Dr. Abiwu said the vaccination, this time will not be undertaken “house to house,” but they are carrying out a static campaign at health facilities with 20 percent of the team moving around to capture the hard to reach communities.

He refuted speculations that the yellow fever vaccination exercise had anything to do with coronavirus vaccination trial, but rather urged persons within the targeted aged group and demography to take advantage of the vaccination to safeguard them against yellow fever.

Related posts

UN congratulates Dagombas, Ghanaians on new Ya Na

Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai

Black Satellites win WAFU Zone B Under 20 Qualifying Tournament

Abdulai Majeed

High Court reverses bail granted Gregory Afoko

Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai

Leave a Comment

%d bloggers like this: