BY GRACE AUKA SALMANG
Less than half of all children complete their vaccine schedule by the age of one.
In stark contrast to the national health information system which reports that there are more than 87,900 suspected measles cases during 2013 to 2017.
Health Department’s program officer, Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Dr Mathias Bauri made this point when speaking on the current situation of measles rubella and polio diseases in PNG: response and call to action, that the low routine immunisation coverage puts children especially below five years of age at high risk in case of a measles outbreak.
According to World Health Organisation country representative in PNG Dr Luo Dapeng, in 2017, measles caused close to 110,000 deaths globally, mostly under the age of five years.
The measles cases continued to climb into 2019 and the preliminary global data showed that reported cases rose by 300 per cent in the first three months of 2019 compared with the same period in 2018.
He said in PNG, a big measles outbreak happened in 2014 with more than 70,000 cases and also had seen random outbreaks in 2017 and 2018, in which many children died.
During a high-level national advocacy meeting on measles-rubella and polio vaccination in Port Moresby this week, heads of all 22 provincial health authorities, representatives of civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, heads of religious institutions, and corporate bodies were told that there was an urgent need for PNG to take immediate steps to protect its children by vaccination because the country had large pockets of unvaccinated children.
Health Secretary Pascoe Kase said with the threat of polio transmission still high despite vaccinating more than 3.3 million below 15-year-old children in March 2019 campaign, there was a need to boost the immunity of children particularly below five years in the upcoming nationwide vaccination campaign.
In the vaccination campaign to begin on June 11, both measles-rubella and oral polio vaccines would be offered at the same time to children six months to five years old and babies to five-year-olds respectively.
He said the recently implemented polio vaccination campaigns required huge resources including vaccines, logistics and cold chain support, funds for vaccination teams and transportation by sea, light aircraft and helicopters to vaccination sites.