According to Upper East Regional Minister Stephen Yakubu, the existing restriction on the movement of ruminants would be eased after 70% of the local animals had received vaccinations.
According to experts' and scientists' recommendations, if we can get a vaccine coverage rate of 70%, it will be safe to withdraw the ban and allow people to resume their regular lives, he said.
In order to reach the anticipated objective in the upcoming days, he said, "We already have the systems and structures in place, and we have scaled up the ongoing vaccination exercise across the region."
Interview
In an interview with the Daily Graphic last Friday, Mr. Yakubu stated that the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) was worried because it had temporarily cut off certain people's source of income.
The purpose of the conversation was to learn how far the vaccination campaign has advanced and when the local ruminant ban will be lifted.
He mentioned that more than 30,000 ruminants have already received vaccinations in the whole region and that they were hoping that number would rise to allow for the lifting of the restriction.
Added vaccinations
Fortunately, he said, the Ghana Refugee Board (GRB) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have pledged to provide more than 105,000 vaccinations in order to enhance immunisation efforts.
He continued by saying that the GRB joined the effort to assist the exercise with vaccinations since many Burkinabese citizens who are presently seeking asylum in Ghana entered the nation with ruminants because they were herders.
"With these additional vaccines coming in, there is no doubt that if they are administered, we will be able to achieve the expected target for the ban to be lifted," he said.
upcoming Eid holiday
He said that the RCC was extremely worried about the impending Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Adha and that they were making every effort to ensure that the ban was lifted before the celebration of the occasion.
He emphasised that "we announced the ban with a heavy heart and that we are putting out a lot of structures to be able to allow our Muslim brothers and sisters to have access to cattle and other ruminants to use for the festival".
In order to make the animals safe for food after the vaccination, all steps were put in place after the region reported the first case in one district, which has now spread to 11 districts. He pleaded with the locals to be patient.
The regional minister stated that "the good news is that we are not recording new cases of the disease, indicating that the measures taken were yielding positive results," and added that "fortunately, it has also helped to prevent the disease from spreading to the North-East and Upper West regions."
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