HEALTH: Zambia to Vaccinate Five Million Children within a Week

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Allan Peters

LUSAKA, Apr 28 2003 (IPS) - Zambia will embark on a week-long programme to vaccinate five million children between the ages of six months and 15 years against measles, starting on June 7.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), in partnership with the Zambian government, will jointly conduct the exercise, which aims to prevent 8,000 infant and child deaths this year alone.

"Measles is a major killer of children and although efforts have been made in the past to eradicate the disease in Zambia, the country has continued to witness numerous sporadic outbreaks and there is no way cooperating partners could standby and watch the situation get worse," says Dr. Stella Goings, the UNICEF resident representative in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

Goings says her agency has acquired 6,000 cold boxes, additional 5,000 ice packs, seven million doses of measles vaccines, six million syringes, sufficient quantities of safety boxes to ensure safe disposal of used syringes and other related supplies to support the programme.

In addition, UNICEF would commit seven of its best health and social mobilisation staff to supplement local personnel during the campaign effort.

"The entire country must mobilise and ensure that all eligible children are taken to the more than 1,200 vaccination posts being set up to provide measles vaccination, Vitamin A supplement and de-worming medication for children below 15 years," she said.

It is estimated that UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) will provide three million and 1.4 million United States dollars, respectively while the Zambian government would contribute about 60,000 dollars and the bulk of local personnel.

Ironically, no sooner had Goings announced the up-coming inoculation exercise than an outbreak of a measles break out was reported in the Kafue district some 40 kilometres south of Lusaka resulting in the death of one child.

Area Director of Health, Dr. Charles Msiska, said 36 children had tested positive for the disease and were undergoing treatment. Also called Rubella, measles is a highly contagious disease that spreads quickly through an inadequately vaccinated community. The disease can kill children directly or more often by weakening their immune systems, making them susceptible to a host of other infections.

Caused by a filterable virus, Measles is characterized by small red dots appearing on the surface of the skin, irritation of the eyes especially on exposure to light, the fever and a running nose. If left untreated, the measles virus extends to the brain resulting in death. Although measles is primarily a child’s disease adults are also known to suffer from the ailment and even die.

Globally, measles kills nearly one million people mostly children each year, with 450,000 in Africa alone. In Zambia, according to the country’s WHO representative, Dr. Edward Maganu, more than 120,000 children and adults were infected resulting in 40,000 deaths from 1997 to 2002.

Zambian medical experts say although Measles is vaccine-preventable, previous immunization campaigns have been frustrated by the presence of refugees especially those from Angola escaping a civil war which went on from independence in 1975 to last year.

Since the beginning of 2002, for instance, Zambia has had an epidemic of measles that started in the Western and northwestern Provinces bordering Angola, with 8,000 reported cases. It spread to Lusaka and Central Provinces.

Health authorities were incensed at the prospect of the outbreak reaching Southern Province where measles coverage rates were low – below 60 percent – acute malnutrition was rapidly rising and serious water shortages were developing due to drought.

As a precautionary measure, an emergency measles vaccination campaign was conducted last year in Southern Province alone and covered 700,000 children.

"This means that the up-coming campaign in June will cover all the country excluding Southern region which was catered for last year," says Dr Victor Mukonka, spokesperson for the Central Board of Health of Zambia’s Ministry of Health.

A recent UNICEF report says measles is the first cause of mortality in Angola and is one of the leading killers of children reaching upto 30,000 every year.

The report says that over the past five years, the average measles immunisation coverage in Angola stood at about 50 percent, well below the 90 percent level necessary to control the disease. It further says that only 91 of 164 municipalities in the former Portuguese colony provided routine vaccination, as some parts of the country were inaccessible due to the civil war that rendered 1.4 million Angolans displaced from their homes.

About 500,000 of the displaced Angolans fled to Zambia through western and northwestern Provinces, some bringing with them communicable diseases like measles and polio.

"With the signing of the cease-fire in April last year between the government of President Eduardo dos Santos and the former rebel UNITA forces, the opportunity to reach large, previously inaccessible populations in Angola will greatly increase the scope of coverage," says UNICEF.

The Angolan refugees have since started returning home and already, reports from Angola say a measles campaign similar to the up-coming one in Zambia, is also under implementation with 5.5 million dollars provided by the Canadian government last year.

"Measles is a formidable but preventable childhood disease contributing to about 70 percent of illness and death in children under five in Zambia. But we’re determined to eradicate it especially after the June immunisation campaign," Zambia’s Health Minister, Brian Chituwo said.. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/HE/AP/SM/03)

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