Children lack basic health services

Bangui: In a context where routine health care has broken down and communities are left without even basic medical treatment, many children living in the Central African Republic (CAR) lack routine immunizations.

Since 2015, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), in partnership with the Ministry of Health, has launched an unprecedented campaign to vaccinate more than 213,000 children against nine common diseases.

MSF, while working in CAR, found that immunization coverage against childhood diseases was low and this resulted in alarming death rates – well above the emergency threshold, despite the fact that easily preventable diseases such as polio and measles have affected unvaccinated children.

In addition to the issues of violence, displacement, and health that arise directly from conflict, it was found that children risked losing their lives without being protected from deadly diseases.

Official figures from the Ministry of Health show that between 2012 and 2014, the number of children vaccinated against measles rose from 64% to 25% and that of acute respiratory infections by 52% to 20%. By the end of 2013, only 13% of children one year old had been fully immunized.

In mid-2015, MSF, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, sought to solve this problem by deploying a two-year program. MSF has also stepped up vaccination campaigns in MSF-supported health centers. In many areas, MSF was able to administer the vaccines to the population only a short time before new violence broke out, rendering the community inaccessible.

"This preventive vaccination campaign was the largest ever undertaken by MSF in CAR, the first of which aims to protect the under-fives against so many diseases," said Dr. Anne-Marie Pegg of MSF

] "Given the current situation in CAR, one of the key lessons learned from the campaign is" do it while you can ", that is to say take every opportunity to reach the children. measures. "

In total, more than one million doses of vaccines were administered to children under five years of age.In addition to providing protection against diphtheria, tetanus, polio, influenza, hepatitis B, pneumococcus, yellow fever and measles, MSF conducted nutritional tests, provided anti-malarial drugs and vitamins, soap and mosquito nets.

Follow-up studies conducted by the MSF immunization staff show that coverage in targeted areas by campaigns has improved considerably, with vaccination coverage exceeding 80% after the first cycle – MSF