* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A vaccine is not just a commodity, it’s a lifeline
When I hear stories of parents in some of the richest countries in the world refusing to vaccinate their children, I am shocked.
In Northern Uganda, health workers like me know and live a different story—one in which we and our families face severe diseases, and feel deeply fortunate when we can protect our children from them.
For decades, the beginning of each dry season brought fear and dread to my community. To prepare for outbreaks of Meningitis A – an infectious and devastating illness that affects the brain and spinal cord—local health officials would set aside significant financial resources. Once an epidemic was underway, panicked parents would keep their children at home and avoid crowded markets. Yet all of the planning and precautions did little to stop the disease.
Meningitis A causes tremendous suffering in children, including vomiting, paralysis, brain damage and even death. Community health workers couldn’t do anything for those infected, and had to refer the families to the district and regional hospitals– often a long distance from villages without reliable transportation means. By the time they arrived at the regional hospital where I worked as a nurse, it was often too late. Meningitis A is also an extremely painful disease, and mothers who have lost children to it tell harrowing stories of watching their children die in pain.
These same stories are told throughout the “meningitis belt,” which stretches across 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. For nearly twenty years, from 1991-2010, close to one million people in the belt got Meningitis A and 100,000 people died. The toll that the disease took extended beyond health: a single case of the disease was enough to put families on the brink of poverty.
But everything changed in 2010.
In that year, a long-lasting and affordable vaccine developed specifically for the meningitis belt called MenAfriVac was launched. Throughout northern Uganda, a targeted vaccination campaign brought the vaccine to health centers in 39 districts. I took part in radio shows to help spread the word about the vaccine’s availability.
So many people ended up coming to receive the vaccine that it was hard to control. While there was enough vaccine for everyone between the ages of 1 and 29, the group most at risk for the disease, fear of Meningitis A was so great that everyone wanted the vaccine. I had to educate people on how herd immunity works and turn many people away.
By the end of that year, in addition to the outreach where I live, the vaccine had reached 20 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, three of the hardest-hit countries. As of now, more than 260 million people throughout the meningitis belt have received it. The effect has been astounding. In just seven years, the disease has been all but wiped out from the region: in 2016, there were only 22 confirmed cases. At my hospital, we have not seen any cases at all.
Mothers and fathers today tell very different stories about Meningitis A.
Parents don’t have to watch their children die in pain from this disease, and health workers like me still feel a great sense of protection and relief. Resources that used to be dedicated to Meningitis A outbreaks can now be used to improve and strengthen the quality of health services. The feelings of helplessness and heartache that used to be associated with this disease have been replaced by a renewed sense of purpose: to build on this progress and reach all children with the vaccine so that we can keep our communities healthy and our economies strong.
Above all, we can’t forget or take for granted what we have achieved. We must continue to tell the stories of the lives that were lost and the families and communities that were shattered. Because while memories of life before the vaccine may not always be fresh in our minds, the threat of disease should be.
I hope that the story of Meningitis A in Africa helps parents, governments and donors understand that a vaccine is not just a commodity, it’s a lifeline. We cannot grow complacent and we must not stop working to develop new vaccines to fight diseases, including other types of meningitis. Our children’s lives depend on it.
Sister Kiboko Petua is the Senior Principal Nursing Officer at the Lira Regional Referral Hospital in Northern Uganda, and the Expanded Program on Immunization/Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response Zonal Coordinator in the Lango sub-region.
