As part of the Country’s effort to prevent vaccine preventable diseases, maintain polio eradication and achieve measles elimination, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation together with partners will conduct a week long Maternal and Child Health week.
According to officials on the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) this year’s MCH week will be conducted from June 23rd to 27th, in which Vitamin A capsules, deworming tablets, defaulter tracing and vaccination of children 0-23 months, and focused ANC services for pregnant women will be delivered.
The Deputy Program Manager, EPI, Dr Mariama Murray explained to journalists that because of the ebola epidemic the routine vaccination was disrupted as well as scaling up nutrition program, which mothers, pregnant women including children under 5, missed out during the epidemic.
She announced that this is the first for this year and Government together with its partners hope to get 95% coverage, and 1.5 million children nationwide.
Dr Murray said the Vitamin A capsule will improve the eyesight of children, and the Albendazole will deworm children from contracting worms of various kinds, which will not only affect their health but also their schooling.
Also during the week long campaign, the Health Ministry and partners through the health education unit in the ministry have developed educational materials to provide essential health services to regain public confidence in the health system as well as to advise and educate communities on Infection prevention and control (IPC) to improve on hygiene, especially with the rains, have already started.
Feimata Russell, from the nutrition directorate was pleased to collaborate with the Expanded Program on Immunization noting that both mothers and children missed out during the ebola crisis, as a result the Vitamin A capsule and the deworming tablets will help to boost the immune system of children.
She also gave a detailed statistics of scaling up nutrition since 2008- 2013, after which the ebola disease broke out.
Madam Russell assured journalists of her directorate’s collaboration during and after the MCH campaign.
Both representatives from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) pledged continued technical and financial support to the Ministry for Government to achieve its 95% target coverage, especially in hard to reach communities.
By Ade Campbell
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