The message to eliminate 12 preventable diseases is contained in a recent handbill by the Ministry of Public Health.
Nursing mothers have been reminded to ensure that their children are immunised against 12 preventable diseases. The message, contained in a recent handbill by the Ministry of Public Health, states that with the support of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, free vaccines and Vitamin A are available for children between zero and 59 months in all health establishments.
Parents are urged to ensure that their children do not miss any of the doses at the specified periods for receiving vaccines and Vitamin A. The vaccines are available either during synchronised immunisations or all the time in hospitals. The handbill is pasted in taxi cabs, walls of public and private health establishments as well as distributed person-to-person in the port city of Douala. The target is to eliminate 12 preventable diseases, including Tuberculosis, Poliomyelitis, Yellow Fever, Measles, Pneumonia, and Hepatitis B, among others, through the administration of free vaccines and Vitamin A.
Meanwhile, 5 per cent of the 690,898 children below 5 years in the Littoral Region have not been reached against 11 of the 12 preventable diseases due to resistance, explained the Regional Delegate for Public Health, Martin Yamba Beyas. He discouraged acts of resistance such as was the case in PK21, Douala, where a parent angrily opposed vaccination agents over allegations that the polio vaccine renders children impotent or sterile. During the synchronised vaccinations in 2015, seven other homes around him joined to resist the exercise.
Later in March 2016 when vaccination was launched to eradicate the polio wild virus, the number of homes opposing and violently resisting the public health exercise had increased to 27. They all joined to chase out vaccination agents with the help of machetes and clubs. However, government remains committed to eradicate the diseases for which it is offering free immunisation with the support of partners.
