Cambodia has stepped up as the first Asian country to introduce a
measles-rubella vaccination campaign.
More
than one million children and youths up to age 15 in Cambodia have been
vaccinated against measles and rubella in a first-time campaign that aims to
immunize another three million by the end of December.
Health
officials are trying to reach all the country’s children aged nine months to 15
years with the new dual vaccination that tackles the highly contagious measles
virus as well as – for the first time in the country – the generally mild
rubella (also known as German measles) that can be debilitating for fetuses of
infected women.
The
Serum Institute of India is providing the combined vaccine at no cost until end
of this year, allowing the country to tackle rubella for the first time.
“In
other vaccination campaigns, children already received vaccines against
measles, hepatitis B or other diseases. But we just introduced rubella this year,
because through our disease surveillance, we found many rubella outbreaks,”
said Sann Chan Soeung, adviser for the Ministry of Health’s national
immunization program.
While
measles is one of the leading causes of child mortality worldwide, according to
the World
Health Organization (WHO)
in the past two years, no cases have been reported in Cambodia, according to
the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“While
Cambodia has made great progress in eliminating measles thanks to high coverage
in a series of successful national measles vaccination campaigns, there still
exists a risk of importing measles from other countries which have not been
successful in eliminating the disease,” said Denise Shepherd-Johnson, chief of
communications for UNICEF in Cambodia.
If
pregnant women contract rubella, their babies are at risk of congenital rubella
syndrome (CRS), which often leads to irreversible blindness, deafness and heart
ailments.
According
to UNICEF, 1,092 rubella cases were confirmed in 2011 based on a one-time
survey. Data has been scant on the disease as it is not part of the national
disease surveillance system; rubella is to be included as of 2014.
WHO estimates
260 children are born with CRS every year in Cambodia; an estimated 100,000 children globally are born with
it annually.
“Approximately
36 percent of cases involved females older than age 15, raising the probability
that pregnant women will be infected and their children will be born with
congenital rubella syndrome,” said Shepherd-Johnson.
Vaccination campaign “on track”
With
one million Cambodian children vaccinated in just over two weeks, the campaign
is “on track”, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said in a recent statement,
adding that every primary and secondary school is vaccinating students.
In
addition, village health officials are instructing parents and caretakers to
bring children who are not enrolled in classes to schools for vaccinations.
According
to UNICEF, the GAVI Alliance, a public-private global health partnership, has
provided more than US$3 million to the country’s measles-rubella campaign.
The
global Measles & Rubella Initiative, a partnership
between American Red Cross, the US government’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, UNICEF, the UN Foundation and WHO, is aiming to eliminate the two
diseases in most of the world (five out of six regions as covered by WHO) by
2020.
With
GAVI support, a similar measles-rubella campaign is being implemented
simultaneously in Ghana, Rwanda and Senegal. The alliance’s goal is to
introduce the dual vaccine in 49 countries by 2020.
Cambodia
is the first Asian country to introduce it.
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