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Urgent funding needed to reach the 2010 measles goal, says Measles Initiative

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:20:15 GMT

Friday, October 10, 2008

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans and the only way to prevent the disease is through vaccination. An estimated 242 000 people, the majority of them children, died from measles in 2006. The failure to deliver at least one dose of measles vaccine to all infants remains the primary reason for high measles mortality.

It costs less than US $1 to immunize a child against measles, making it one of the most cost-effective public health interventions. Investing in the goal to reduce global measles deaths by 90% between 2000-10 also strengthens national immunization programs, improves health systems in the long-term and significantly contributes to achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Four to reduce under-five mortality by two thirds by 2015.

The Measles Initiative, launched in 2001, has invested about US $430 million in measles control activities and this investment has saved up to 2.3 million lives. A strategy to reduce measles mortality, which includes vaccinating all children against measles before their first birthday via routine health services and providing a second opportunity for measles vaccination through mass campaigns, has been key to ensuring the 68% reduction in global measles deaths.

Partners meeting in Washington DC at the 8th annual Measles Initiative Advocacy Meeting highlighted that the funding for measles activities in 2009-10 has not been fully secured as donors have not kept pace with country demands for support for this important public health program. So the recent gains in measles control are in danger of being lost, which increases the risks of outbreaks and disease importations.

To date, all countries in the world but one have implemented the measles reduction strategy. The world's success in reaching the measles goal also depends on one country, India, according to the Measles Initiative partnership. Measles is a major cause of childhood mortality and morbidity in India due to persistently low vaccination coverage and the lack of a second opportunity for measles immunization.

Partners agreed that achieving the measles goal hinges on:

1. Securing funding by past, existing and new donors, both public and private, to close the funding gap which currently stands at US$ 176 million for 2009-10, of which US$ 35 million is needed in 2009. New donors such as Merck joined the Initiative recently but former supporters such as the International Finance Facility for Immunization, have ceased support.
2. Securing the political commitment from the Government of India to fully implement the measles reduction strategy.
3. Sustaining the gains that have been made, especially in the African region where measles deaths have fallen by 91% between 2000-06.

About the Measles Initiative

The Measles Initiative is a partnership committed to reducing measles deaths globally. Launched in 2001, the Initiative—led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and the World Health Organization—provides technical and financial support to governments and communities on vaccination campaigns worldwide. To date, the Initiative has supported the vaccination of more than 500 million children in 50 countries helping reduce measles deaths by more than 68% globally and 91% in Africa between 2000-06. To learn more or make a donation, visit http://www.measlesinitiative.org/.

UNICEF

AFRICA: Cervical cancer vaults to WHO priority list

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:30:46 GMT

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

With cervical cancer cases rising across Sub-Saharan Africa, and 80 percent of women diagnosed too late to stop the cancer’s deadly spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending screening and vaccination programmes throughout the region.

“WHO is going to strongly advocate with donors and decision-makers to list cervical cancer as a public health priority…because with a vaccine we can save lives by preventing cervical cancer.” said Jean Gabriel Wango, head of family health at WHO in Ouagadougou.

The vaccine will help fight the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which if left untreated, can develop into cervical cancer.

A silent killer’s spread

"There is little investment in this disease and many of our women are unaware of it…so they die in silence,” said Sita Kaboré, president of Kimi, an association that runs cervical cancer screening campaigns in Burkina Faso.

A cancer physician at the UK-based Oxford University, David Kerr, says by 2020, 70 percent of the 15 million new cases of cancer diagnosed every year will be contracted in the developing world.

Cervical cancer is the most common tumour for African women, according to WHO. In Uganda, 80 percent of female cancer survivors suffer from cervical cancer, says Dan Murokora, a Uganda-based gynecologist.

But weak record keeping has hampered governments’ efforts to find out the disease’s morbidity rates; WHO advises governments to focus on record keeping in developing their prevention plans.

Screening

Cervical cancer is largely preventable but women need to be screened every three to five years to halt the deadly disease, according to Charlemagne Ouédraogo, a Ouagadougou-based gynecologist.

But in Sub-Saharan Africa, which lacks diagnostic equipment and national prevention programmes, only 5 percent of women are regularly screened for cervical cancer, according to WHO’s Boureima Hama Sambo, relegating most cases to late-stage, hard-to-cure diagnoses.

WHO is urging health ministries to make the HPV vaccine available in their national health plans to all 10 to 13-year- old girls in order to prevent the disease.

Reducing vaccine costs

The vaccine’s three doses cost a total of US$300, in a region where the average annual salary is about US$550, according to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

The Geneva-based Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization is expected to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to bring the price down, while the UN, Program for Adaptation of Technologies in Health (PATH), and World Bank have pledged to help with costs so patients only pay US$45 for the vaccine.

Hurdling the cost barrier

For some of Africa’s health officials, this price reduction is key to their governments’ participation. "It is a good idea to integrate the HPV vaccine into programmes, but it remains too expensive. WHO and its partners need to assist countries to buy the vaccine first." says gynecologist Caroline Leite from Cape Verde.

WHO’s Sambo dismisses these cost concerns, and says the vaccine should be widely available soon. “We think that there is an expression of political will and we think that very soon we’ll be able to roll out the vaccine for these populations,” he concluded.

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Yellow fever epidemic feared as vaccinations start

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:58:33 GMT

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Ivorian Ministry of Health has confirmed 19 people have been infected with yellow fever since May, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns Cote d’Ivoire is at an “elevated” risk of yellow fever epidemics.

“Since the beginning of May, Abidjan has been threatened with a yellow fever epidemic,” confirmed Felix Bledi Touin, a senior health official. “Three cases have been found in the [Abidjan suburbs] Treichville and Cocody. At this stage, 19 cases have been confirmed and 1,500 people have been vaccinated,” he said.

Yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes. Epidemics touch on average 20 percent of people in affected areas, half of whom may die, according to the WHO. There is no cure for people already diagnosed with the fever, but a vaccination can prevent infection.

WHO vaccinated 26,000 people against yellow fever in February 2006 in Bouna, in the east of the country. A vaccination campaign was also conducted in the capital, Abidjan, in 2001.

The Ivorian government and WHO have announced another vaccination campaign for this year targeting almost two million people in Abidjan.

“Despite a large vaccination campaign conducted in 2001, the rate of coverage is still only around 60 percent,” the WHO said in a statement.

The early symptoms of yellow fever are similar to malaria, making it hard to recognise, experts say. After experiencing fevers, sore muscles, and nausea, an infected person may relapse into jaundice, bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth. Resulting kidney failure can lead to death.

Yellow fever is on the rise again in Africa, although an effective vaccine has been available for 60 years.

IRIN

BURKINA FASO: Meningitis epidemics in vaccinated areas

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:21:51 GMT

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Monday, April 14, 2008

People vaccinated against meningitis are supposed to have protection for three years but health officials have announced that meningitis epidemics have occurred in several areas where populations had recently been immunized.

“[Health researchers] are currently collecting information so as to identify the factors explaining the recurrence of the epidemic in districts where populations have been vaccinated”, Ousmane Badolo, head of the epidemiologic surveillance department at the ministry of health, told IRIN.

Vaccination campaigns target people between 2 to 30 years old; according to the ministry of health, 80 to 90 percent of the victims of meningitis belong to that age group.

A total of 714 people have died since 1 January out of 7,184 cases.

Several different bacteria can cause meningitis which is an inflammation of the protective membranes covering the central nervous system. The Neisseria sero-group is one of the most important to watch because it often leads to epidemics, experts say.

Badolo, the epidemiologist, said that health research teams from the UN World Health Organization and US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have come to Burkina Faso to investigate. “This is the first time that such research is being conducted,” Badolo said, adding that at this stage he could only guess why the vaccination programmes have not worked.

“Perhaps it is because of population displacement,” he said, “for instance in gold mining areas people are often coming and going.”

The health researchers will focus their work on the districts of Réo in the central west of the country, Boulsa in the central north, Titao in the north and in Sig-nonghin a district in the north of the capital Ouagadougou.

The populations in each of those four districts were vaccinated last year yet each has reached epidemic thresholds.

A total of five out of the country’s 55 districts have reached the epidemic threshold and 14 others are on alert.

Meanwhile, 3.5 million people have been vaccinated this year out of a population of 14 million. The government said it is in the process of procuring a million more vaccines with the help of UN Children’s Agency UNICEF.

Source: IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

BURKINA FASO: Meningitis epidemics in vaccinated areas

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:21:17 GMT

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Vaccination campaigns target people between 2 to 30 years old; according to the ministry of health, 80 to 90 percent of the victims of meningitis belong to that age group.

A total of 714 people have died since 1 January out of 7,184 cases.

Several different bacteria can cause meningitis which is an inflammation of the protective membranes covering the central nervous system. The Neisseria sero-group is one of the most important to watch because it often leads to epidemics, experts say.

Badolo, the epidemiologist, said that health research teams from the UN World Health Organization and US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have come to Burkina Faso to investigate. “This is the first time that such research is being conducted,” Badolo said, adding that at this stage he could only guess why the vaccination programmes have not worked.

“Perhaps it is because of population displacement,” he said, “for instance in gold mining areas people are often coming and going.”

The health researchers will focus their work on the districts of Réo in the central west of the country, Boulsa in the central north, Titao in the north and in Sig-nonghin a district in the north of the capital Ouagadougou.

The populations in each of those four districts were vaccinated last year yet each has reached epidemic thresholds.

A total of five out of the country’s 55 districts have reached the epidemic threshold and 14 others are on alert.

Meanwhile, 3.5 million people have been vaccinated this year out of a population of 14 million. The government said it is in the process of procuring a million more vaccines with the help of UN Children’s Agency UNICEF.

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Unprepared to respond fully to meningitis threat

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:39:28 GMT

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Some 172 cases of meningitis have been reported in Cote d’Ivoire and 44 deaths since the beginning of January, but with only 400,000 vaccines available for the one million people at risk and health staff poorly prepared to deal with a meningitis epidemic, a wider crisis is feared.

Health staff are “not well-trained” in predicting and responding to meningitis outbreaks in Cote d’Ivoire, said Mamadou Guingaré, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization’s Multidisease Control Centre in Burkina Faso, which means officials “do not know for certain” the full extent of the problem.

Only seven Ivorian health districts have reported meningitis cases, with many of the other 65 districts not reporting at all, despite 18 of them being known to be at risk, he said.

Epidemic levels have only been announced for the town of Tengréla in the north on the Mali border where 75,000 people have been vaccinated.

The towns Bouaké, Sakassou, Vavoua and Daoukro in the centre and centre-west of the country are on alert, according to Rémi Allah Kouadio the minister of health and hygiene.

Across the border in Burkina Faso, 255 people have died of the infection out of a total of 1,938 reported cases since the beginning of January.

Kouadio Aka Tanoh Bian from the World Health Organization said the WHO may have to call on emergency funding mechanisms such as the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, to buy more vaccines quickly for Cote d’Ivoire.

The WHO team in Cote d’Ivoire said it is supplying the government with 379,000 vaccine doses against two types of meningitis and has sent a request for 600,000 more for Cote d’Ivoire to the International Coordination Group for vaccine (ICG) on Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control which provides vaccines.

The meningitis bacterium, which usually reaches epidemic levels in the West Africa region between December and May, could be especially severe this year, forecasters have warned, as the region is heading toward the peak of a 10- to 12-year cycle of meningitis crises.

Source: IRIN

AELP launches compensation programme

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:53:35 GMT

Monday, January 14, 2008

The Africa Emergency Locust Project (AELP), Gambia Office, last Thursday, January, 10th, 2008, launched the Crop Loss Compensation Programme targeting 230 villages affected by the 2004/05 locust invasion at Kanilai village in the Foni Kansala District of the Western Region.
The event also witnessed the distribution of agricultural items such as vegetable seeds, fertilizer, fruit tree seedlings, watering cans, nerica rice seeds, cassava cuttings and knapsack sprayers to the said villages.

Launching the campaign, Dr Amadou Sowe, permanent secretary at the Department of State for Agriculture, on behalf of his SoS, Kanja Sanneh, said the compensation package also includes the vaccination of 100,000 small ruminants against two Epizootic diseases namely PPR and NCD which have serious impact on the livestock population countrywide.

He said AELP’s intervention in this sub-sector is timely as outbreaks of such diseases occur in January of each year and the vaccination would save the small ruminant population.

According to Dr Sowe, this compensation scheme underscores the government’s overiding policy on income and food security and poverty reduction by 2015 as enshrined in MDG1.

At the moment, he went on, the Regional Locust Teams, Department of Vetenary Services and NGOs have already sensitised the regional authorities and beneficiaries on the distribution and vaccination exercise, which will commence in some parts of the country on 11th January, 2008.

On why the village of Kanilai has been chosen for the official launching, Dr Sowe said: “Kanilai has been chosen for the launching due to President Jammeh’s unbeatable efforts, manifested in agriculture since 1994, his clarion call for Gambians to go back to the land, and the efforts of his government for The Gambia to benefit from such a regional project to fight, manage and mitigate locust invasions, in and out of The Gambia,”

For his part, Sheikh Tijan Sosseh, acting project coordinator, AELP Gambia Office, said the crop loss compensation activity under component b, which involves the 230 villages affected by the 2004/05 locust invasion countrywide and the operation is valued at US$123,000.

Other speakers included Musa Dampha, Director of Extension Services at the newly established National Agricultural Development Agency( NADA), Captain Baboucarr Sanyang, commander of Kanilai camp, Kora Faye, Kanilai farm manager. The ceremony was chaired by Kekoi Kuyateh, deputy permanent secretary, Department of State for Agriculture.

Author: by Assan Sallah

Sukuta Health Centre Organise Open Day: Vaccination Saves Lives

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:05:57 GMT

Monday, December 17, 2007

Sukuta Health Centre recently organised an open day vaccination programme aimed at saving lives. The programme was organised by the MRC unit in partnership with the Gambian Governments’ Department of State for Health.

Delivering his speech during the programme, the MRC unit Director Professor Tumani Corrah underscored the significance of centres in sub-Saharan Africa in researching the mechanisms of infectious diseases and the development of effective interventions. He added that health, and the conditions which promote it, are a common theme across the Millennium Development Goals. Technology, he said, has a key role to play in their attainment.

The MRC Director further explained that in 2002, the MRC in the UK established a partnership with The Gambia’s Department of State for Health in order to investigate how the immune systems of infants respond to vaccines and infections encountered in early life.

According to Professor Corrah, the MRC Sukuta field team works in close collaboration with the staff of the health centre. He went on to say that the Government’s extended programme of immunisation and the National Leprosy and TB Control Programme are fully informed and supportive of the research activities that are taking place.

Dr. Corrah went on to explain that since 2002 some 1,300 children have been recruited into studies of infections and vaccines at the Sukuta Health Centre.

This has led to some breakthroughs in our understanding of the infant immune system. Among these is a better understanding of immunity to the chronic viral infections Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) and Cyto Megal Virus (CMV). The effects of malaria contracted during pregnancy by the mother, on a child in its early life are also better understood as a result of the research.

Other speakers included Chief of Kombo North Demba Sanyang and Sukuta Clinical service Dr. Jane Adefita. The closing remarks were delivered by Dr. Katie Flannagan.

Author: By Njie Baldeh & Pa Modou Faal

Source: The Point

Measles campaign covers 375 villages in URR

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:29:39 GMT

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

In a spirited drive to totally eradicate measles in the region, 375 villages in the Upper River Region (URR) with a joint population of 36,000 children between the age group of 6-9 months have been covered in the measles campaign within 5 days by 33 teams.
Me
asles kills over 700,000 children globally and in The Gambia, it is reported to have been responsible for epidemics that have resulted in the death of children even though it is a vaccine preventable disease.

Mathew Baldeh, Unicef health officer responsible for immunisation and nutrition who doubles as the Unicef representative overseeing URR in the campaign, in an interview with the Daily Observer said the mandate of Unicef as an organisation is basically to ensure the welfare of women and children and measles as a terrible children’s disease falls under the mandate of the organisation.

He added that Unicef, WHO and American Red Cross have formed a partnership to combat the problem of measles through immunisation with a goal to eliminate it.
“W
e are using two strategies towards the elimination of measles. These are routine and supplementary campaigns,” he explained.

According to the Unicef health officer, The Gambia apparently has a high routine measles coverage of 90 per cent. “Despite this, The Gambia continues to conduct campaigns to provide a second opportunity for children between the target age group. This has been proven to be effective in that there has not been a single laboratory confirmed case of the disease from 2005 to date,” he said.

On his impression of the measles campaign in URR, Mr Baldeh said the campaign has achieved high coverage both for measles, Vitamin A and de-worming. “As you can see, 375 villages have been covered within 5 days of the campaign. The teams are now moping up in the villages, if possible to even go beyond the target. I am impressed with what I have seen since the start of the campaign. Everything went on smoothly with smallconstraints but these didn’t hinder the progress of the campaign,” he concluded.

Author: by Lamin M Dibba on the ground

Red Cross Volunteers Prepared For Measles Campaign

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:36:19 GMT

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

At least 44 (forty four) Red Cross volunteers were, over the weekend, prepared for a measles immunization campaign which will reach out to communities in Central River Region.

Speaking earlier the Red Cross Supervisor Mr Pa Musa Kijera pointed out that this program campaign will cover children from 6 to 59 months, adding that during the campaign they will also be giving vitamin A and de-worming tablets to children. Mr Kijera implored the participants to make best use of the knowledge and skill and to live up to expectations.

For his part the Regional Health Officer CRR Mr Karamba F. Keita asserted that vitamin A deficiency is a problem in many children, noting that vitamin A helps to reduce damage to tissues and aids the body in resisting infection. Mr Keita further stated that children from 6 months to 11 months will be given 100,000 IU blue capsules, while children from 12 months to 59 months will be given 200,000 IU red capsules.

He further elucidated that worms are parasites that live in human intestines, stating that de-worming will lead to the improvement of child health and well being. Mr Keita revealed that targeting about 34,979 children in the CRR and that vaccination trams will be going round to immunize the children.

He further called on the people of CRR to cooperate with the volunteers during the campaign; he commended the Red Cross crew for their active participation during the training.

Author: By Abdou Rahman Sallah

Source: The Point