Published: Wednesday, 30 March 2016 14:29
The Deputy Program Manager of the Child Health Extended Program on Immunization (EPI/CH) Ministry of Health and Sanitation DR. Mariama Murray said the National Polio Campaign Round 2 would target up to one million four hundred and sixty two children country wide.
Dr. Morray made this statement on Tuesday during a press briefing at the Ministry’s conference room, Youyi building, in Freetown.
She said that the second round of polio campaign which will start on the 1st to the 4th of April. This second round is aiming at reaching 95% success; adding that the last campaign which had the same target of 95% exceeded the target by reaching 98.7% target.
It could be recalled that the 2015 round one Polio campaign that was done in February targeted 1.2 million children country wide aiming at 95% target.
According to Dr. Murray, even in areas where they used to find difficulties to reach their target, were very successful. “ For the first time we have 97% target success in the Western Area, she added.”
The Deputy Program Manager thanked press men present for what she described as “a well job done” for disseminating the information on the last campaign. Murray added that the polio is done three times a year adding that the journalists would also give more emphasis to this upcoming campaign like they did for the previous one. Adding that they have trained more personnel in order to be able to vaccinate hard to reach areas.
In his own statement, the Director of Reproductive and Child Health Programme Dr. Santigie Sesay told the gathering that since 2010 the country has not recorded any polio case, but that this doesn’t mean that the country should relax because other countries in the sub region are still recoding cases of polio which has the tendency to spell over.
Dr. Santigie Sesay added that it was the responsibility of everyone in the country to reduce maternal mortality rate in the country by urging pregnant women and lactating mothers to make the health center a friend, and close partner.
Foday Kamara who represented UNICEF in the press briefing updated the briefing that UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministry of Health has just trained district monitors to make sure that the target areas are reached during the campaign.
Mr. Kamara disclosed that that this campaign would also include defaulter tracing and vaccination of children who did not take the missile marklate. Adding that there is more than enough vaccines for the whole exercise.
By Mohamed Belloh Dukuray
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