A one-year effort to immunise 64 million children in Pakistan against measles, the largest public health campaign of its kind in the world, is one step closer to completion.
“This is the world’s largest mass measles campaign ever undertaken,” Melissa Corkum, a spokeswoman for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN in Islamabad.
The fifth and final phase of the campaign targeting 34 million children between nine months and under 13 years of age in Pakistan’s populous Punjab Province and Islamabad began on 17 March and will conclude on 3 April.
Over 19,000 skilled and 45,000 semi-skilled persons are engaged in the mammoth campaign overseen by 3,700 supervisors.
Unlike the house-to-house strategy employed in the country’s ongoing polio eradication drive, the children are immunised in schools, health facilities, hospitals and outreach centres.
“Unlike polio campaigns, if every child receives this injection, there is no need to continue these mass campaigns,” Corkum said.
Since March 2007, 30 million children have been immunised in 99 districts throughout the country, including Balochistan, Sindh, North West Frontier Province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the country’s Federally Administered Northern Areas.
Responsibility
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over one million cases of measles and 21,000 measles-associated deaths occur annually in Pakistan.
“This means that 58 children die every day in Pakistan from measles and the associated complications,” Corkum noted, adding that by vaccinating “we have the ability, the opportunity, and most importantly now we have the responsibility, to protect the children of Pakistan from measles.”
This is no easy task, with continued community mobilisation still needed to ensure every child is immunised against measles and other preventable diseases.
“Every segment of the community, including opinion leaders, religious leaders, teachers, health workers - including lady health workers - must be fully working in partnership to ensure no child is missed during this one-time campaign,” the UNICEF official stressed.
“A missed child is an at risk child, so parents should ensure their child receives the immunisation even if they have been immunised before or have had measles,” she said.
To date, the Global Measles Initiative (American Red Cross, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the UN Foundation, UNICEF and WHO) and other development partners, have supported the vaccination of over 400 million children in 50 countries in an effort to reduce measles deaths by more than 68 percent globally and 91 percent in Africa (compared to 2000).
As part of the campaign in Pakistan, UNICEF and WHO are providing technical assistance to the government to reduce childhood morbidity and mortality caused by measles.
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