National Immunisation Plan urgently needed: Minister

There is an urgent need for the country to have a National Immunisation Plan covering all diseases that can be immunised against, says Minister for National Planning, Richard Maru.

Minister Maru has formally written to the Minister for Health & HIV/AIDS, Sir Puka Temu, requesting the National Department of Health to immediately complete a four-year plan for launching and implementing from 31st March 2019 in addition to the ongoing public immunisation work, which has progressed very well to date.

He said this was essential to meet the national target of achieving an 80 percent immunisation coverage by December 2022. Currently, the national coverage is at 40 percent from 2018 as the base-year.

“The re-emergence of polio is the clear evidence of our total failure to focus on immunisation as a key disease prevention strategy. This performance is unacceptable everywhere in the world today,” Minister Maru said.

He stated that over the years, successive governments have lacked the leadership and focus on this priority area and this serious issue cannot remain unattended to. As a responsible government, the O’Neill/Abel government must take strong and decisive action now.

“We need a 4-year national plan with full costing which we can share with provinces and districts to sign up to include co-funding assistance under DSIP,” Minister Maru said.

He is certain of the support of development partners and donors to roll out this 4-year program which will aim to ensure that by the year 2022, up to 80 percent of our children are immunised, consistent with the global golden target.

Author: 
Press release