Measles immunization campaign launched to combat child mortality

The national supplementary measles campaign was launched on Saturday to fight the disease, which is the third most common cause of mortality among children in Yemen. The Ministry of Public Health and Population have already launched the campaign in 73 districts and have scheduled it to run for six days, ending on Thursday. “The campaign aims to reach 90 percent of target children in the governorates of Yemen,” said the Minister of Public Health and Population, Dr. Abdul-Karim Ras’e, who said that the campaign had been drawn up by the ministry to combat one of Yemen’s most serious causes of child mortality.

According to the World Health Organization, measles is one of the most contagious diseases known, with almost all non-immune children contracting the disease if exposed to the virus. Measles is an acute illness caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family. It is a respiratory disease, with the virus normally growing in the cells that line the back of the throat and those lining the lungs. Measles is a human disease, with no known animal cases.

The campaign aims to immunize 1.4 million children ranging between nine months to 15 years old in the governorates of Aden, Mareb, Shabwa, Sa’ada and al-Jawf in addition to two districts in Amran, three districts in Ibb, one in Abyan, and another in al-Mahweet. Dr. Ras’e said that these governorates and districts were chosen because they do not reach the accepted immunization rate of 80 percent, despite the fact that there are many immunization centers in those areas. 

The campaign was a regional initiative adopted by the WHO in coordination with national programs for expanded immunization in the Middle East Regional countries, and was produced at a cost of $1.7 million. The Yemeni government and the WHO have supported the programme. UNICEF provided the vaccinations. 

According to the deputy minister of care in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Majed al-Junaid, about 4,216 health workers will carry out this campaign in addition to 94 supervisors in the different governorates, 365 supervisors in the districts and 146 supervisors from the local councils. “The immunization teams of this campaign will aim to visit schools in the targeted districts to immunize children in the target age groups,” said al-Junaid. 

This campaign will complete a similar one, implemented last year. The previous campaign included all governorates in Yemen and vaccinated about 9,500,000 children. It helped to decrease the rate of infection to just 17 proven cases, compared to a previous total of 30, 000 cases per year. It also helped to decrease the rate of mortality from measles, which is estimated at 5,000 deaths annually. 

Dr. al- Junaid also publicized the campaign’s goals to all related authorities that might be able to play an important role in educating people to achieve this. 

The General Director of Family Health in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Ali al-Madhwahi, called upon all mothers and fathers to vaccinate their children against this serious disease and to pay more attention to routine immunization in order to strengthen their children’s immune systems against various fatal diseases. 

According to the WHO, measles remains a leading cause of death among young children, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine for the past 40 years. An estimated 345,000 people, the majority of them children, died from measles in 2005.

Vaccination has had a major impact on deaths due to this disease. From 2000 to 2005, more than 360,000 children globally received the measles vaccine through supplementary immunization activities and routine immunization has also improved over this period. These accelerated activities have resulted in a significant reduction in global measles deaths, decreasing by 60 percent between 1999 and 2005. The largest gains occurred in Africa where measles cases and deaths decreased by nearly 75 percent.

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