ABOUT 4.3 million children between the ages of nine months and 50 months are expected to be immunised under the Measles Supplementary Immunisation Activity (SIA) this year.
Within the same period, the beneficiaries will also be given a dose of vitamin A to protect their eyes.
The figure represents 17 per cent of the total national population.
The Central Regional Deputy Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in charge of Public Health, Dr John Eleeza, made this known when he briefed journalists on the SIA mass immunisation campaign in Cape Coast.
Dr Eleeza said in 2000, the World Health Organisation, Africa Region, set a goal of 90 per cent reduction of measles deaths by 2009 compared to 2000.
Dr Eleeza said the decision was one of the targets of the millennium development goals.
He said the country had not recorded a single death of measles for the past eight years.
Dr Eleeza said measles is among the highest morbidity and mortality cases in the world and accounts for five per cent of the deaths of children under five years in Africa and 50 per cent of all vaccine preventable disease deaths.
He said the country was expected to reduce child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.
According to him, the programme was aimed at ensuring routine immunisation, providing a second opportunity, effective surveillance system and improving case management.
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