Parents told to exercise patience at vaccination centres

Solomon Antwi Brefo, Ayensuano District Disease Control Officer, Ghana Health Service has advised parents to exercise patience when seeking treatment for their children at vaccination centres.

He said children who were not vaccinated earlier due to the nationwide shortage of childhood vaccines, were at no risk of complications so parents should exhibit patience towards nurses.

” Exercising patience is a vital way of improving sound and good health care. Every child who is eligible to vaccinate will be immunised,” he said.

Ghana, in the last quarter of 2022 and February 2023, experienced a nationwide shortage of childhood vaccines such as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for Tuberculosis (TB), Measles-Rubella (MR), and Oral Polio vaccine (OPV).

The situation has over the period put parents whose children were due for immunisation in perplexity. This, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, Minister of Health assured that “We have done all the necessary arrangements with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and we are doing all things possible to get these vaccines earlier.”

The vaccines have now arrived in the country.

According to Dr Patrick Kuma – Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, the government had procured stocks that were enough to last beyond this year, but they were being received in batches.

Antwi Brefo, Ayensuano District Disease Control Officer told the Ghana News that the district had received BCG, Rota, MR, and OPV vaccines and distributed them to 29 facilities in the nine sub-districts. He said the district did not record any casualties during the shortage period. The district’s annual target to immunize children under one is 3,940 and the monthly target is 328, he noted.