Eastern Health aims to vaccinate 250,000 children against measles and mumps

Called parents to vaccinate their children during the two-month campaign

Eastern Region Health Branch and first health rally to launch next measles, rubella and mumps vaccination campaign in eastern governorates and cities next Sunday , which will last two months until April 3 and will target more than 250,000 children.

"Eastern Health" is the target group of the campaign that targets children aged 6 months to 5 years, where immunization of children in primary health care centers, regardless of previous immunization status of the child.

This is part of the Ministry of Health's commitment to eradicate measles and control mumps in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines and the recommendations of the National Committee of the World Health Organization. vaccination of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Health.

Al-Sharqiya stressed the importance of parents visiting the nearest health center to vaccinate their children to prevent an epidemic and spread measles quickly, while stressing that vaccinations are free for all children in the group. target age, regardless of their nationality and eligibility for treatment in health centers.

The Ministry of Public Health and Health Centers is ready to carry out this campaign on time.

"Eastern health", measles is a high prevalence disease and highly infectious; airborne virus is a serious disease that can cause high mortality in children, with the death of one in two children in every 1,000 children infected with the disease, resulting in many complications, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, ear infections, partial or total hearing loss, encephalitis, seizures, blindness and future learning difficulties.

Mumps can cause serious complications such as inflammation of the testes and ovaries and can rarely cause future infertility, while they can cause meningitis, a brain, pancreatitis and hearing loss. If a pregnant woman suffers from measles during the first half of her pregnancy, this can lead to a loss of pregnancy or fetal measles, which causes severe birth defects such as small head size, white water, blindness and heart problems.

In the year 2018 recorded 74 confirmed cases of measles, 53 confirmed cases of mumps and two cases of German measles delivery and these figures were higher than the expected annual cases.

As expanding immunization coverage for children is one of the most important strategies for eradicating measles and controlling mumps, the presence of safe and effective vaccination contributes to the elimination and control of these diseases.