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The Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) for Poliomyelitis has commended Ghana for maintaining her Polio-free Status for three more years but advised that the country intensified surveillance and develop strategies to sustain the gains. 

     Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, the Chairperson of the Africa Regional Certification Commission, at the opening of a five-day ARCC Annual Meeting in Accra, said Ghana had not recorded any cases of wild polio virus at least for the past three years, and has received certification granting her a free status from the disease.

    She, however, said some neighbouring countries still had threats of the disease which made it crucial for health systems to maintain strong surveillance to prevent any importation.

    Prof. Leke said the ARCC meeting was happening at a time when Nigeria, after two years without any case, reported four wild polio virus cases in three regions which were inaccessible due to the insecurity of the Borno State, resulting in the country being put back into the list of endemic countries.

     She said the WHO and GPEI partners considered the new development as a regional outbreak of the Lake Chad Basin countries involving the Central African Republic, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

     This, she said, raised a concern of the ARCC members on how to ensure and assess the quality of activities in security compromised and inaccessible areas.

    “This should be a lesson learnt for all countries. Countries should update their preparedness and response plans and implement containment activities,” she said.

     Prof. Leke said a total of 36 countries had successfully presented their complete documentation to the ARCC, but the Commission reserved the power to call any country following acceptance of their documentation to re-present a complete country record to ensure that they still remained polio free.

     She said the meeting would review the complete documentation of Algeria and Cape Verde, while five countries; Ghana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau and Gabon were invited to present their progress reports.

       She said the ARCC recognised all the efforts being made in countries and from the GPEI partners to respond to the polio outbreaks in Nigeria and the other Lake Chad Basin countries and called for high quality activities, advocacy and adequate resources to overcome the situation in the African region.