A nationwide vaccination campaign kicks off in Haiti as part of an effort to ensure more children are immunized
By Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA (AlertNet) - A nationwide vaccination campaign kicks off in Haiti on Saturday as part of an effort to ensure more children are immunised and to curb or prevent infectious diseases in the Caribbean country.
The Haitian authorities, supported by the U.S. government, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organisations, aim to give more than 2.5 million Haitian children, from newborns up to the age of nine, vaccines against measles, rubella and polio.
Vitamin A and de-worming medicine will also be provided to combat tetanus. Immunisations will be staggered and are free of charge, Haiti’s health ministry said.
Over the past week, thousands of Red Cross volunteers across the country have been visiting Haitian families from door to door and tent to tent, to encourage mothers to get their children vaccinated.
The Red Cross is sending millions of SMS text messages, running shows on its weekly radio programme and using twitter to alert Haitians to the vaccination campaign.
Trucks equipped to play recorded information messages have been driving through communities and loud speakers have been provided to camp committees in some of the capital’s tent camps where around 490,000 Haitians still live following the 2010 earthquake.
“Information is everything,” John Fleming, health coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Haiti, said in a press statement.
“It is critical that all Haitian mothers and caregivers, no matter where they live, understand the importance of the vaccination programme and the incredible opportunity it offers. We assist by explaining the benefits of having your child vaccinated, how it will happen and help to dispel any myths,” he added.
POLIO
The oral polio vaccine is part of Haiti's routine child immunisation programme, and it can protect a child for life. But immunisation rates of polio and other infectious diseases are low in Haiti. The vaccination programme aims to increase immunisation coverage among children.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that invades the central nervous system. The virus is spread by food, water and hands, which have been contaminated with infected faeces.
The disease mainly affects children under five years of age, can lead to total paralysis in a matter of hours and be fatal. Polio has no cure and the best way to prevent the disease is by immunizing as many children as possible, experts say.
The last verified outbreak of polio in the Americas was in Haiti and the neighbouring Dominican Republic in 2000 and 2001 when 21 cases were reported.
While no official cases of polio have been reported in Haiti since then, the country’s poor water and sanitation systems, high child malnutrition rates and inadequate access to basic state health services, makes Haiti vulnerable to possible future outbreaks of the disease, experts say.
CHOLERA
These factors have also helped other infectious diseases spread quickly across Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. A cholera epidemic has killed more than 7,000 Haitians and infected 530,000 more since it began in October 2010.
Following a steady decline, the number of new cholera cases is likely to surge with the start of the rainy season, according to the U.N’s humanitarian agency, OCHA.
“Inadequate sanitation and lack of clean water will be compounded by flooding during the current rainy season. This is likely to trigger important cholera outbreaks,” said OCHA in its April report.
The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) estimates around 200,000 more Haitians could catch the infectious disease during this year.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
