HEALTH-SIERRA LEONE: Polio Eradication Campaign Kicks Off

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Oct 12 1999 (IPS) - Sierra Leone has finally joined the rest of the world in a massive campaign to eradicate polio, just 12 weeks after a cease-fire accord was signed between the government and rebel forces.

The West African state, which is the last country to begin polio eradication campaign, has been torn apart by an eight-year bloody civil war.

Over the weekend, leaders of the two main rebel groups, corporal Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Major Johnny Paul Koroma joined President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, at the Presidential palace, to kickstart the campaign.

When administering the first oral vaccine on a baby boy Patrick Williams, Kabbah said: “This particular campaign was planned without knowing that Foday Sankoh would be with us here today. He has joined us to kick off the campaign, which is another symbolic attempt of the government to work with all segments of our society for the benefit of all Sierra Leoneans.”

Before this campaign, it was virtually impossible to access children in rebel-controlled areas, which make up more than 65 percent of the country’s territorial land mass. Instead of helping health workers in the polio eradication campaign, rebel forces were conscripting children, sometimes as young as ten to take up arms and kill.

Unconfirmed reports say more than 30 percent of RUF fighters are children aged between 10 and 16, who were either abducted or pressganged into joining the most deadly rebel outfit in the sub- region.

“This is quite a remarkable achievement because of the current climate of peace, and I can tell you that the campaign went successful,” says Nance Webber, information officer of the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef).

Webber told IPS some 800,000 children all over the country were targetted, with more than 2,000 health workers and volunteers, including former rebel combatants, took part in the exercise, administering vaccines on children.

“We have always believed that the idea of protecting the health and welfare of children can bring people together in constructive ways,” said Carol Ballamy, executive director of Unicef, in a statement.

She said: “In this tenth anniversary year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is gratifying to see every youngster’s right to immunisation becoming a reality.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO), Rotary International, unicef and other international non-governmental organisations (ngos) sponsored the campaign, with vaccines and other logistics airlifted by WHO, to previously inaccessible areas of the country’s interior.

The Minister for Health and Sanitation, Dr. Ibrahim Tejan Jalloh, said: “Our target is to make Sierra Leone polio free by the turn of the century. We cannot have a better movement than now to fight this evil disease.”

According to Unicef, the polio eradication campaign adopted four main strategies, including high routine immunisation coverage with Oral Polio Vaccine, National Immunisation Days that vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children under five in a simple day, and door-to-door immunisation, known as “mopping up” campaigns.

Over the weekend, hundreds of parents could be seen braving the torrential rains to have their children vaccinated.

Mariama Sheriff, a housewife in the east end of the capital Freetown, told IPS “I am satisfied that my two children have got the polio vaccine free of cost. I had to put aside all domestic chores, brave the heavy downpour to make use of the opportunity.”

Meanwhile, authorities in the Ministry of Health have said that with the polio eradication campaign now completed, the government’s priority now is to try and combat a deadly cholera epidemic that has been taking toll on the population.