Unprecedented all-in-one vaccination campaign for under-fives

In a unique all-in-one pilot campaign launched on Monday, almost a million Togolese children are to be vaccinated free of charge against measles and polio as well as being given mosquito nets to fight malaria and pills to treat intestinal worms. “Malaria and measles are the main causes of child deaths in Africa,” Pascal Villeneuve, director of health for the UN Children’s Fund, told IRIN as the five-day scheme got under way in this West African nation wedged between Ghana and Benin. Authorities are targeting 866,725 children aged between nine months and five years. They will be given a shot against measles, a polio vaccination, a pill against intestinal worms and a mosquito net treated with repellent to protect them from the malaria-carrying insects. Togo's health authorities said 95 percent of the country’s small children aged between 9 months and five years would be vaccinated under the US$ 6 million scheme. “Six dollars will be spent on each child,” UNICEF’s Villeneuve said. The handout of impregnated nets is particularly relevant to Togo, where malaria is the leading cause of child illness, responsible for 43 percent of medical consultations and 44 percent of the children treated in hospital. Six percent of children aged below five die of the disease. “They told us not to wash the nets with any old soap and not to leave them out in the sun,” Georgette Lack, one of the mothers, told IRIN. The nets, that need to be washed every three months, can last up to four years with proper care. Anti-polio vaccination campaigns for small children took place in Togo over February and March and again in October and November this year. But this week’s pilot scheme will allow health workers to administer an extra two drops of VPO anti-polio vaccine. Meanwhile, the country’s campaign against measles is bearing fruit. In 2002, around seven people in every 100,000 had measles -- a big drop from 2001 when about 36 people in every 100,000 caught the disease. The number of people dying from measles has been slashed by 94 percent. Intestinal worms is believed to play a leading role in the high rate of anaemia in Togo - prevalence is between 79 percent and 94.3 percent in babies aged between six and 36 months. Alongside UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Rotary and Plan Togo are helping Togo in the integrated pilot scheme, which is being closely monitored by scores of aid workers hoping to implement it elsewhere. “We chose Togo as the pilot because the country’s health cover is quite good, there are not too many people and the government was willing to test this approach,” Villeneuve told IRIN. Kokou Sewonou Adjogble, the doctor in charge of Togo’s epidemiological watchdog service, said the all-in-one vaccination scheme “is not being carried out in schools but in places where medical workers have easy access to as many children as possible at once.” “We’re not going to go door-to-door or school-to-school,” he said. Officials said taking the scheme to community centres or other places where large numbers of children could be reached saved money. As well as a poster campaign, the media, traditional chiefs and community and religious leaders are all being asked to inform families about the scheme.