Daniel Adu Asomaning, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Safety Officer, Expanded Programme on Immunisation, Ghana Health Service (GHS), has charged traditional leaders, particularly queenmothers, to use their influence to drive Ghana's immunisation agenda in the communities to ensure the achievement of set targets.
Speaking at a training workshop in Accra for 50 selected queenmothers from the southern part of the country, on Thursday, Mr Asomaning acknowledged the power and influence traditional leaders had on local communities, stating that they had a crucial role to play to dispel the myths surrounding vaccinations and immunisations. "I encourage you to advocate to people in your communities that immunisation is an investment, not an expenditure, and that the life of our children matters," he urged the queenmothers.
The training, organised by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health (GCNH) and the GHS, was to empower the traditional leaders with the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively educate their communities on the importance of immunisations to dispel long-standing myths that had hindered vaccine uptake.
It also focused on building the capacity of the queenmothers to educate caregivers about the importance of taking children, aged zero to five years, for routine immunisation.
