The Education Unit under the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare last Friday organised a media orientation on the forthcoming measles campaign and vitamin A supplementation.
Speaking at the press briefing held at the KMC grounds, Omar Badjie of Health Education unit said during the measles campaign, which will run from 12 to 18 December 2011, they would be targeting children between the ages of six months and five years.
He said they would also give out vitamin A to children under the age of six months to nine months.
According to Badjie, they will be using needle to vaccinate the children different from polio vaccine.
Because of that, he added, they will be conducting the exercise in bantabas and not by going from house to house.
For her part, Rohey Njie of the same unit said: “Measles is a sever disease characterised by rash, cough, red eyes and diarrhea.”
She also said that although they have not seen any confirmed cases of measles they embarked on the exercise because they want to protect the young children aged from 6 months to 9 months.
Madam Njie explained that they have three teams two comprise health workers and one volunteers, adding that they will be based in bantabas, markets and borders and not a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Abdou Aziz Ceesay of the National Nutrition Agency, in his remarks, said that “vitamin A is very important for children”, as it is a very important micro-nutrition that is needed in small amounts by the body, especially for the young children less than 5 years.
Mr Ceesay said vitamin A can reduce mortality (death rate) by at least 20, 30 or 50 per cent.
He noted that they are targeting 310,735 children with their mothers. He therefore called on parents, especially the mothers, to ensure their children get the vitamin A vaccine.
Labo Bah, also from the education unit, said: “The campaign starts on 12 and ends on 18 December.”
