(Daily Graphic, Nov 22, 2011, Back Page)
HEALTH
authorities in the Northern Region, where yellow fever claimed a life, are set
to commence a vaccination exercise today, Tuesday, November 22, 2011
to curb the spread of the yellow fever disease.
 |
| Dr Jacob Mahama |
The World Health Organisation (WHO)
recommended that there should be a reactive vaccination in various parts of the
country following confirmations that five persons were infected with yellow
fever in some parts of the country.
The vaccination exercise would take
place in 43 districts countrywide.
In the Northern Region, the vaccination
would be carried out in six districts that have been considered as high risk
due to their proximity to Wa and Cote d’Ivoire, where there has been an
outbreak of yellow fever.
The districts are the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba,
Bole, Central Gonja, West Gonja, East Gonja and West Mamprusi.
Briefing the Daily Graphic on the vaccination exercise, the Deputy Northern
Regional Health Director in Charge of Public Health, Dr Jacob Mahama said the
vaccines had been distributed to the districts, pending the commencement of the
vaccination exercise, which is scheduled to end on 28th November, 2011.
“We would be vaccinating persons who are
10 years and above. We are not including those below, because the assumption is
that this group was already vaccinated as part of the routine EPI,” he explained.
Dr Mahama mentioned that on August 20,
this year, a 16-year-old boy, reported at a clinic in Sawla in the
Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district with complaints of fever, chills, vomiting and abdominal
pains.
He said after examinations, he was referred
to the Wa Hospital in the Upper West Region, where he died the next day.
“However, the blood sample of the
patient was sent to Accra and later to Dakar, Senegal, in September this year
where it was found to be positive for yellow fever,” he noted.
Dr Mahama said following the
confirmation of the yellow fever case, a team from the Regional Health
Directorate, comprising disease control officers, clinician, doctor,
epidemiologists and health promotion officer, was dispatched to Sawla.
The team, he noted, undertook a search
for other cases, by reviewing the records in all the facilities.
He said the team found no other case,
but sensitised the health staff in the district and the community on yellow
fever, its symptoms and causes.
Yellow fever, as explained by Dr Mahama,
is an acute viral fever with symptoms that include fever, chills, vomiting and
jaundice.
It’s a disease prevalent in Tropical
Africa and South America, because the Aedes mosquito which transmits this virus
breeds in the tropics.
Twenty to thirty per cent of patients
who suffer from severe yellow fever lose their lives.
The best ways to avoid yellow fever is
through vaccination and by avoiding the bite of a mosquito.
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