The Ministry of Health and Sanitation will on the 20th April, 2018 commence National Immunization Campaign across Sierra Leone. This was disclosed to journalists at the MOHS conference room in Freetown.
The Chairman of the program, Head of Health Education Division at the Ministry, started the conference by thanking the media for what he described as their unwavering commitment towards supporting the Ministry of Health in its drive to have a healthy nation.
Dr. Dennis Marke, Program Manager Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), while giving an overview of the campaign, informed journalists that the campaign will be synchronized across the African region and it will target a total of 1,529,635 children in Sierra Leone between the ages of 6-59 months.
He further stated that during the campaign Polio Marklate will be administered to all children who are under five years.
“This would also be accompanied with an intensive tracing of all children under two years with a view to get them to be immunized against all vaccines they could have missed during these two years.” the EPI Manager disclosed.
“The house to house campaign will also administer Vitamin A for infants between 6-59 months which, according to him, is essential for the functioning of the immune system, healthy growth and development of children.”
Besides, Albendazole will also be given to children (12-59 months) age from the 20th to 23rd April, 2018.
“It prevents children from visual impairment, illness and other childhood infections like measles and diarrhea,” Mr. Marke concluded.
Representatives from WHO, Unicef, Health and Nutrition and other divisions within the ministry were also present during the conference.
It could be recalled that the African continent is doing very well in terms of eradicating the polio virus as the last case of polio was reported in August 2016 even though there are still cases in the world with Afghanistan and Pakistan still recording cases as early as last week.