Ghana - Communication Executive Summary

As of November 16, Ghana has 0 confirmed cases of Polio for 2004 (WHO weekly Bulletin).



The presentation from Ghana was one of the most positive. Substantial progress had been made on several fronts. A dedicated national Expanded Programmes for Immunisation (EPI) manager was in place and a host of regional and national planning meetings had been held with religious leaders, the media and a host of NGOs and associations. A Health Promotion Network has also been established with the Ghana ministry of health. Planning weaknesses were identified in the failure to organise a feedback forum to update all partners on the National Immunisation Day (NID) issues and the failure to implement all the media advocacy visits that the health promotion network members had recommended, as well as incomplete interpersonal communication (IPC) supervision of vaccination teams and volunteers.



At the microplanning level, action had been taken on the distribution of consent letters to all parents in the known rejection schools, the development of public announcements in six regional languages and the identification of regional radio stations for intensive campaigns. Intensive one-on-one discussions were also carried out with known anti-polio activists. Ghana was one of the few countries that reported the timely disbursement of social mobilisation funds to all districts. Daily media monitoring was carried out by Health Promotion Network members, and some cross-border communication activities were carried out with neighbouring states. Some problems were identified in the development of district communication plans and pre/intra NID assessments of the most effective communication interventions were incomplete.



One of the highlights of the Ghana report is the implementation of the new Super Check system designed to monitor the quality of the NIDs. This system involves the pre-selection of houses for participation and education of the residents on specific things that vaccination teams are supposed to do and say during the visit. The residents then fill out a form immediately after the team leaves and it is picked up by a supervisor afterwards. Other strong points included the rapid response by teams to areas where missed children were identified using the rapid assessment tools. Identified weaknesses included difficulties in assessing the effectiveness of communication activities in areas that had been flooded due to heavy rains and inadequate involvement of some political leaders due to competing priorities.



Major follow-up priorities and action points include plans for the sustained involvement of religious and traditional leaders in EPI programmes through the holding of biannual meetings, intensified IPC training for community health nurses, and standardised training for community volunteers on Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) detection and prompt reporting.

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