The Department of Health and partners launched the campaign to improve immunization coverage to save lives of children in Port Moresby on Monday 8 May 2023 to raise the country’s immunization coverage rate.
The Supplementary Immunization Activity (SIA) on Measles-Rubella, Polio and Vitamin A will be conducted by the National Department of Health with support from UNICEF, WHO and Gavi. It will run for five weeks and will cover all 22 provinces including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
This campaign is to stop the cycle of thousands of babies born but many of them die before reaching their fifth birthday, one of the causes is due to diseases that are preventable through immunization, which include measles, polio, whooping cough and tetanus.
Health Secretary, Dr Osborne Liko, while launching the event on behalf of the Health Minister Dr Lino Tom, said it is unacceptable that many children are still not immunized, despite all government health facilities providing free immunization services.
He said PNG’s immunization coverage rate stands below 50 percent, with some provinces having even as low as 25 percent, which is a great concern.
About 30-40 percent of hospitalization and death in the country among children is due to illnesses such as measles, meningitis, tetanus, whooping cough, along with pneumonia. These children can be protected by full and complete immunization.
Dr Liko said SIA is an expensive exercise but it has to be conducted to save the lives of the children who are the future of this country. Therefore he thanked UNICEF, WHO, and all the other partners such as Gavi, governments of Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The objectives of the Measles-Rubella immunization include:
• Vaccinating all children aged 6-59 months with one dose of MR vaccine, irrespective of their previous vaccination status. A total of 1.2 million children (12.5 per cent of total population)
• Vaccinating all children aged 0 to 59 months with one dose of b) PV, irrespective of their previous vaccination status. A total of 1.3 million children (14.5 per cent of total population)
• Provide Vitamin A supplement to all children aged 6 to 59 months
• Strengthen and follow Routine Immunization-focus campaign in selected districts aiming at catching up with large number of zero dose children.
SIA, also referred to as mass-immunization campaign, is an effective strategy for delivering vaccination to children who have missed out due to varying reasons.
Main reason for children missing out on vaccination include; hard-to-reach areas, never been taken for immunization or zero dose and underserved groups and communities or to older susceptible individuals who are not among the age groups targeted by the routine Expanded Programme Immunization (EPI).
As such, SIA have the effect of rapidly increasing population immunity by reducing the susceptible individuals in the population, which can result in protective “herd” immunity.’’
Other benefits include building national capacity, reducing inequity of service delivery, advocating for Routine Immunization, improving immunization practices and providing further published health benefits through integration of other public health interventions with the SIA.
“All children in PNG have the right to a bright and healthy future. We salute the efforts of the
National Department of Health and partners to bring renewed energy to accelerate catch up
and help prevent future outbreaks.
“The response to Polio outbreak in 2018 has shown us that collective and concerted actions work. We must exercise that same vigor for children’s immunization to make sure that no child in PNG gets left behind,” said UNICEF Representative Dr. Claudes Kamenga
Meanwhile, WHO Country Representative, Dr Sevil Huseynova said, this program ensures, that all children are up to date with immunization that they may have missed in the last 3 years of the pandemic when routine immunization services were disrupted.
“We encourage all parents to bring their children in for vaccination. Looking after our children and their health is our core business and vaccination is the best and most effective ways to do this” Dr. Huseynova said.
The campaign will go for five weeks and will cover all the 22 provinces, including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.