Bolgatanga, Dec. 23, GNA - A three-year-old child known only as Mavis was saved when a vaccination team from the Ghana Health Service rescued her during an immunisation exercise at Azoribiisi section of Bolgatanga.

The health team found the child who had been locked up in a room for over a year.

Mr Felix Fredrick Amega-etego, Project Manager of Next Generation Home (NGH), an orphanage, told the GNA that the parents of Mavis, who live in southern Ghana, had sent the child back home to live with the grandparents. They claimed the child was a "spirit child" and her presence was a bad omen to the family and therefore should be killed.

He said the child was locked up in a room where she eased and ate food thrown to her only once in a while until the vaccination team visited the house to immunise children there and found her.

Mr. Amega-Etego said the team, who heard Mavis' continuous cry, asked for her to be immunised but the family refused until the team pressed on to vaccinate the child.

It was then revealed to them that Mavis was been kept there to die. The NGO is keeping the little girl in the orphanage.

A report has been made to the police in Bolgatanga and to grandfather of the child, whilst the Social Welfare is waiting a court order to arrest the parents of the child.

He said a medical examination conducted on the child revealed that she suffered urinary tract infection and anaemia due probably to poor nutrition and the bad sanitary conditions under which she was kept. Mr. Amega-Etego said Mavis had spent three weeks at the orphanage and has begun to talk and socialize with other children, has agreed to sleep on a mat and no more runs away when people approach her.

He said Mavis was responding to treatment including nutritional therap= y and appealed to members of the public, individual philanthropists and institutions to support the Home take care of the children.