BOGOTA (AlertNet) - An intensive campaign is underway in Haiti to immunise around 1.5 million Haitians amid concerns of increased risks of disease outbreaks after last monthÂ?s catastrophic earthquake.
The magnitude 7.0 quake left more than a million homeless, of which around half are living in squalid makeshift camps across the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.
"Lots of people living in crowded areas with poor sanitation and difficulty in accessing clean water facilitates the spread of disease," epidemiologist Jeanette Rainey, an expert in the spread of infectious diseases with the United Nations' children's fund UNICEF, told AlertNet by phone from Port-au-Prince.
The mass vaccination drive, which started earlier this month, is organised by the Haitian government, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Its initial aim is to protect children under the age of seven living in camps in the capital and other quake-affected cities, including Leogane and Jacmel, against diseases such as measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
So far around 62,000 Haitians have received vaccines against these potentially life-threatening illnesses, according to UNICEF estimates.
Diphtheria and tetanus vaccines for older children and adults are also available, especially for quake survivors with open or dirty wounds who are more susceptible to bacterial infections that can lead to tetanus.
Even before the quake, outbreaks of diseases in Haiti were a major concern. Tetanus among newborns was a leading public health problem and the country suffered a big outbreak of whooping cough in 2004, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Americas arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Prevention of diseases has been historically poor in Haiti: only half of all children below the age of one received measles vaccines before the quake, says PAHO.
UNICEF's Rainey added: "The low immunity among the population also facilitates the spread of disease."
CHALLENGES
With people constantly moving in and out of camps, some of which host up to 25,000 people each, aid agencies are finding it difficult to keep track of those who need vaccines and those who have already been immunised.
"The population in the camps is very fluid, which makes it difficult to calculate coverage," said Rainey. "Some families have just moved in and need to be immunised so that means organising vaccination teams to return to the camps."
Another challenge is to ensure that vaccines are kept in cold temperatures to preserve them and to provide enough so-called cold boxes to transport vaccines in.
Creating more robust surveillance systems to monitor the incidence of infectious diseases in some 315 camps is a priority, says WHO. The aid agency and NGOs have set up field laboratories in some camps to monitor outbreaks of diseases as part of an emergency early warning system.
While increased cases of diarrhoea and suspected cases of measles and tetanus were reported several weeks after the quake, so far there have been no major outbreaks of diseases.
However, a recent WHO report said there will be a high risk of such diseases as malaria, dengue and leptospirosis spreading in Haiti from April onwards.
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