Dr Philip Narh, the Medical Superintendent of the Ada-East District Hospital, has charged healthcare providers to increase surveillance on measles and polio to prevent their possible outbreak.
Measles is a viral disease that causes fever and rash, which is highly contagious and spreads through the air when the person with the virus talks, sneezes, or coughs, touching surfaces containing the virus and then touching one’s mouth, nose, or eye.
Symptoms include high fever, tiredness, cough, bloodshot eyes, and sore throat.
Dr Narh said this during the 2024 mid-year health review and explained that immunisation had proven to control and eliminate the life-threatening disease and the other six childhood killer diseases, hence the need for the health providers to extend immunisation to all the communities in the district.
Although measles cases had reduced drastically in the district, there was a need for more investigation to prevent any future occurrence, stressing the importance of enhancing surveillance and proactive measures to curb any potential outbreak.
Madam Judith Asase, the District Health Information Officer, said the administration of vitamin A at some facilities in the district had declined for the past three years, and that the Doga CHPS compound administered 286 vitamin A in June 2022 but reduced to 213 in the same period in 2023 and further declined to 190 in 2024.
The Azizanya Community Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound also had a reduction from 215 in June 2022, to 185 for the same period in 2023, while the 2024 first half has recorded a reduction to 180.
He tasked facilities, which had seen some improvement in their immunisation activities, to educate the others on the strategies they implemented that worked for them.
GNA