Five Days of Free Vaccines

Esther F., a Yaounde inhabitant, was anxiously waiting at the District Hospital in the Efoulan neighbourhood last Saturday, April 27, 2013 to have her nephew, Boris, aged 12 months, vaccinated. The little boy's mother had heard news of the immunisation campaign over the radio and ensured that her son was taken to participate even though the latter had received all his vaccines within the 0 to 12 month period.

According to one of the supervisors of the vaccination team, and traditional ruler of Efoulan Cité, HRH Jean Charles Eric Abega, 2,000 vaccinations were recorded on the first day of the Health Action Week for Infant and Maternal Nutrition (SASNIM) for 2013. During the launching the week on Friday, April 26, 2013 at the Mvog-Ada District Hospital in Yaounde, the Public Health Regional Delegate for the Centre, Thérèse Nga Awana Nkoa, said SASNIM 2013 is part of the second edition of the World Immunisation Week and the third edition of the African Immunisation Week. She said from Friday, April 26 to Tuesday, April 30, 2013, the campaign will target children from 6 to 59 months as well as pregnant women.

The exercise will not only enable fixed and mobile immunisation teams to catch up with children who did not complete their series of vaccines under the 0-12 month routine vaccination period, but also give Vitamin A supplements to children between 6 months and 5 years as well as de-worm children between 1 and 5 years. For pregnant women, the campaign aims at catching up with those who missed the routine anti-tetanus vaccine as well as provide the preventive intermittent treatment for malaria from the fourth month of pregnancy.

Globally, the campaign provides free and quality assured vaccines against at least ten diseases including tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, influenza, pneumonia, measles, yellow fever, poliomyelitis and viral hepatitis. Sources at the Public Health Ministry say although immunisation coverage throughout the country is laudable, one out of five children is still not immunised.

Concerted efforts and the contribution of partners such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in providing vaccines and logistics for transporting them to hinterlands have been lauded. UNICEF sources say efforts to immunise children have reduced or eliminated the incidence of devastating illnesses. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980. Polio was recently eliminated in India and is now endemic in only three countries - Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Between 2000 and 2011, measles deaths dropped by 71 per cent worldwide. Furthermore, 29 countries eliminated neo-natal tetanus between 2000 and 2013.