Measles campaign proceeding well

Efforts to vaccinate up to three million people against measles in Tajikistan are proceeding well, one week after the campaign's launch. "We're only on the first week and we have already covered more than half the target group," Yukie Mokuo, head of office for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Monday, noting that they needed to sustain the momentum to ensure that coverage was kept at its highest and adverse reaction cases at minimum and manageable levels. As of Saturday, excluding the northern Soghd region, 2,095,498 people had been vaccinated against the disease or almost 71 percent of the targeted figure, Mokuo said, making it the largest nationwide immunisation campaign since the former Soviet republic gained its independence in 1991. Almost 3 million people, or nearly half the country's population, are being targeted in the two week campaign that began on 27 September. In an effort to reach all children aged 1 to 18, health workers aged between 19 and 29, as well as security personnel and university students in the country's northern Soghd region, some 6,000 health workers were being employed in the effort. Meanwhile religious leaders, teachers, health staff and volunteers continued to work nonstop in mobilising millions of children and their parents of the campaign. The US $2.6 million government initiative, with extensive support from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Japanese government among others, is being administered through schools, health centres and mobile teams throughout the largely mountainous, impoverished state. But the challenge of vaccinating so many over such a short time frame has not been easy. "Not many are aware that Tajikistan has a very difficult and mountainous terrain," the UNICEF official explained, noting enormous efforts were made during the preparation stage in procuring vaccines and ensuring they were in place at the start of the campaign. Still another challenge were frequent power cuts in some areas, as was the case in the southern Tajik province of Kulyab. "That's the reason, UNICEF, with the support of the Japanese Government, invested a lot in upgrading cold facilities and equipment," she said, noting ice lined refrigerators kept vaccines safe up to 32 hours even with the disruption in electricity. Moreover, vaccine carriers were also provided for mobile teams travelling to remote areas, ensuring that each and every child in the country is vaccinated. "All health workers involved in the campaign have been trained in the management of cold chain facilities and equipment," she added. Measles is a common disease caused by a virus of the genus Morbillivirus. An acute viral disease marked by distinct red spots followed by a rash, it primarily occurs in children. The disease is spread through respiration (contact with fluids from an infected person's nose and mouth, either directly or through aerosol transmission) and is highly contagious - 90 percent of people without immunity sharing a house with an infected person will catch it. According to UNICEF, child mortality is becoming an increasing problem in the country, where the number of children who die before the age of five has reached 118 per 1,000 births. Measles is one cause being cited, which has reemerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union when immunisation campaigns were routine. Devastated by five years of civil war that ended in 1997, Tajikistan, hopes to eradicate measles by 2010.