Life
September 22, 2005
Malawi embarks on mass measles vaccination
The Malawian government Wednesday began a three-day nationwide vaccination of children to deal with increasing cases of measles that killed 31 children within a year as of November 2004.
A senior official with the Ministry of Health, Jonathan Nkhoma, told Xinhua that between November 2003 and November 2004 Malawi reported 1,000 cases of measles with 31 deaths and that this year alone there have been 19 confirmed cases of measles with no fatality case.
He said the vaccination campaign was targeting 1.8 million children aged between nine months and five years who would get the vaccine in 6,000 specially set up vaccination centers throughout the country.
Nkhoma said the campaign, which will cost about 1.4 million US dollars, has been jointly funded by the Malawian government and the United Nations Foundation through the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
He said the Malawian government had decided to embark on the mass vaccination campaign a year earlier than planned following a sharp increase in measles cases, which had been spilling into the country from neighboring Mozambique.
"We are having this vaccination exercise jointly with Mozambique and through this exercise we will be able to stop measles from spilling into Malawi from Mozambique," Nkhoma said.
Malawi has since 1998 been conducting major measles immunization campaigns every four years to clear measles reservoirs that build up over the years mostly because most mothers are reluctant to take their infants to health centers for the routine vaccinations.
Like in the past, Nkhoma said, vaccinated children would also be provided with Vitamin A supplementation capsules.
A WHO local representative, Matshidiso Moeti, told journalists last week that despite recent increases in measles cases, Malawi like other southern African countries was doing well in its efforts to eradicate the disease.
"Measles is close to elimination in southern Africa but there is still need for mothers to have access to basic health services if the disease is to be wiped out completely," she said.
Source: Xinhua
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