THE Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC) is supporting the Ghana Health Service to de-worm and provide vitamin A supplements to children in the Northern Region.
This is running concurrently with the National Polio Immunization exercise which commenced on Thursday, 12 May and would end on Saturday, 14 May, 2011.
Personnel of the Tuma Kavi Development Programme (TKDP), the local partners of the CCFC who have been monitoring the exercise in the Savelugu/Nanton district, described it as successful.
The Programme Officer of TKDP in the Zogu Area, Ms Vivian Awabu Sumani told the Daily Graphic that the de-wormers and vitamin A supplements were meant to complement efforts aimed at strengthening child health.
She explained that children who eat balanced diets were likely to get the vitamins and minerals they needed, but due to the low income levels, many parents were unable to provide these balanced diets.
“This therefore means that we have to give some nutritional supplements to support the growth of the children,” she noted.
The Community Health Nurse at the Zogu Health Centre, Ms Duulie Daina said the immunization exercise was going on smoothly, noting that the children were being given the Vitamin A supplements and de-wormers as well.
She indicated that the Zogu area had been given a thousand each of the de-wormers, vitamin A supplements and polio vaccines.
Meanwhile, the CCFC is also supporting the fight against malaria particularly in children and pregnant women.
In line with this, it provided 224 insecticide treated nets, which were distributed by the TKDP to children in Duko, a community in the Savelugu/Nanton district.
“We are also undertaking some sensitisation on how to prevent malaria infection and to seek the right treatment,” Ms Vivian Awabu Sumani, the Programme Officer of TKDP in the Zogu Area, stated during the presentation.
She said in addition to the nets, the TKDP also distributed some hygiene kits to adolescent females in Mogla, also in the Savelugu/Nanton district.
“Each kit is made up of items such as detergents, sanitary pads, shaving sticks, nail cutters and disinfectants,” she mentioned.
The programme officer explained that the decision to give hygiene kits was influenced by the realisation that many adolescent females knew very little about how to manage the health challenges they face during that stage in life.
“So apart from giving them these kits, we also educated them and their parents on how to observe personal hygiene and manage their menses,” she added.
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