Ghana's NID

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m procrastinating.  I have been since exams ended 10 days ago.  It just so happens that research is hard, and often it’s not attention grabbing.  In light of this mood of procrastination, I have the opportunity to share with you my experience in Ghana’s National Immunization Day (NID).

In 1985, RotaryInternational launched PolioPlus, the first and largest internationallycoordinated private-sector support of a public health initiative, with an initialpledge of US$120 million. To date, Rotary has contributed over $1billion and thousands of Rotarians have become personally involved in campaigning for Polio eradication or participating in NIDs, like the one I participated in recently.

When I went to Uganda last year with a number of District 5050 Rotarians, I heard their stories of the NID in Ethiopia. While I had been hearing about NIDs for some years, this trip and the great things I heard had me realize that an NID was something I, too, would like to be involved in. As luck would have it, I happen to be in a country where NIDs happen each year. Yet another reason why Ghana was a great choice for my scholarship year!

Ghana’s NID was supposed to happen sometime in April. Unfortunately for me, the date was postponed to the day before a final exam and I didn’t think it was smart to leave studying during the crucial last hours before the exam. Fortunately for me, the date was postponed AGAIN, and the NID was held last Thursday!

At 5am, I left Accra with some of the RRC members for a small village about 2 hours away. We had paved roads for the first ¾ of the route, but from then on we were lucky we were in a truck that could take us through water soaked roads and marshlands. We parked at a school and went on foot from house to house, seeking children under age 5 to vaccinate.  This took us about 4 hours and we only did half the village!

It was funny to see how some kids reacted. Some would start crying before they saw us take out the ‘medicine’. Some cried after they tasted it. Some stood there with smiles on their face or mouths open, ready to receive the vaccination. Others ran away, only to return with the shouts of their mothers and the threat of being beaten (not in a child-beating, unacceptable kind of way). The newborns seemed annoyed that they had to be woken up for such a thing.

While Ghana is not a polio endemic country, its big brother Nigeria (along with Pakistan and Afghanistan) is. Borders are very porous in West Africa, and migration is common, especially with the instability affecting large parts of Nigeria. Ghana is a common destination for many in the sub-region. As such, the unofficial slogan of Ghana’s NID was “when Nigeria sneezes, Ghana gets a cold,” demonstrating how important it is to immunize all children in Ghana.

When you’re a child under 5 you, of course, have no idea what polio is.  For me, I have seen people in Ghana who have been affected by polio and I have an idea about what the disease can do. To be able to participate in a day like the NID, knowing that I have helped to prevent the crippling or death of Ghana’s potential future leaders, was one of the greatest privileges for me.  I felt so honoured to be able to participate, even if it was just for a few hours on one day.  Thank you Rotary!

On a related note, please check out District 5050s End Polio Now Flashmob - like and share so we can get 1,000,000 views!