Ghana has launched a national health campaign to protect millions of children against malaria and other life-threatening diseases through immunisations and distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets.

For the first time in Ghana, all children under the age of two - 2.1 million - will receive the bed nets, which protect against bites from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Malaria claims an estimated 20,000 children's lives in Ghana each year.

As part of the health campaign, more than five million children under the age of five will be vaccinated against measles and polio and will receive Vitamin A supplements to help boost their immunity. And 500,000 children in the country's three northern regions will also be given de-worming medication.

"This campaign is a tremendous opportunity for Ghana to prevent the needless deaths of our young children," Health Minister Courage Quashigah said in a statement issued by the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF), which is helping facilitate the health campaign that kicked off on Wednesday. "Far more children in Ghana deserve to get the best start in life, and it is our duty to ensure that this happens."

Boosting gains

In the past five years, Ghana's national infant mortality rate (64 deaths per 1,000 live births) and under-five mortality rate (111 deaths per 1,000 live births) have not improved, despite a series of efforts by the government to prevent the deaths of young children.

But health experts say this is largely because further gains were nearly impossible without the country simultaneously focusing on other health-related issues such as improving water, food security and the environment. The government has begun to focus on those areas as well, which should help jump-start a reduction in child and infant mortality, said Marius de Jong,first secretary of health and gender for the Dutch Embassy in Ghana.

Taking into account health indicators in other regional countries, Ghana has performed well, he said. Sierra Leone's infant and child mortality rates, for example, are more than double those of Ghana.

"Compared to the region Ghana is not doing bad in terms of child and infant mortality. The expenditures on healthcare in Ghana are relatively high and education levels are higher," De Jong said.

Officials hope the health campaign, led by the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service, which carries out the ministry's programmes, will dramatically reduce the 80,000 annual deaths of children under the age of five, most of them from preventable or treatable diseases.

Malaria is hyperendemic in Ghana and responsible for one-quarter of all under-five deaths in the country. The consistent use of treated bed nets could reduce all-cause child mortality in Ghana by 20 percent, equalling some 16,000 children, said the ministry.

Adults, especially pregnant women, are also being urged through community education programmes to sleep under the nets.

The Health Ministry said the Vitamin A supplements will provide a critical micronutrient for early childhood development and could help avert many young deaths. A mild degree of Vitamin A deficiency might increase a child's risk of developing respiratory and diarrhoeal infections, decrease growth rate, slow bone development, and decrease likelihood of survival from serious illness, according to the US National Institutes of Health.

Maintaining achievements

The measles and polio vaccines will help to ensure that Ghana continues its good record in preventing these diseases: there have been no reported measles deaths since a 2002 national measles campaign and no polio cases since 2003, the ministry said.

Polio had nearly been eradicated worldwide in 2001 but has since spread to at least 15 countries with nearby Nigeria accounting for two-thirds of all cases. International health experts say global polio eradication hinges on four countries - Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan - which is why some polio-free neighbouring countries, such as Ghana, have decided to continue their efforts to protect children from the disease.

"What we are doing through this campaign is not only to ensure that we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, but also to invest in the future - the children of Ghana," Dr. Joaquim Saweka, the World Health Organisation representative in Ghana, said in the UNICEF statement.

"We are making a lot of savings by ensuring that our children are protected against measles, polio, Vitamin A deficiency and malaria all at once," he said.

Teams of health workers and volunteers will run the 9,500 immunisation posts across the country. More than 28,000 volunteers were trained in the run-up to the campaign, and 1.5 million leaflets alerting parents to the campaign were distributed to all primary schools.