Journalists Strategize to Promote Rotavirus Vaccine

The rotavirus is to blame for severe diarrhoea and the government of Cameroon has stated preparedness to check the killer disease by introducing a vaccine to serve children below 11 months.

That was the message when journalists in the North West region recently assembled to concert and strategize to stand by the government's action in the face of the killer.

In effect, the professional communicators were drilled on best practices to educate and sensitise the population to belong as the nation has mobilized to introduce the vaccine. It emerged from the workshop's Focal Point person in the Regional Delegation of Public Health, Fung John, that key words in prevention against diarrhoea due to rotavirus include "washing of hands before and after meals and after every stool, good food and water hygiene, exclusive breastfeeding until six months and systematic vaccination of infants with the rotavirus vaccine". The killer is evident in high fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and once infected, it becomes incumbent to re-hydrate the child immediately orally with Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) and rush the child to the nearest health centre. The virus spreads from one infected infant to another and at times to adults through hands and objects soiled with faeces from infected persons.