Immunisation programme needs boost

THE last week of April each year is marked by the World Health Organisation and its partners as World Immunisation Week.
It aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against diseases.
Immunisation is considered one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions in the world.
In fact, immunisations prevent two to three million deaths in the world every year from diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and measles.
Yet, almost 22 million infants worldwide are still missing out on basic vaccines.
Statistics show that one child in every 13 born in Papua New Guinea die before the age of five – which is higher than any other country in the Pacific.
These deaths can easily be prevented with readily available vaccines.
The biggest challenge causing low immunisation coverage is that many children in PNG do not get vaccinated, for whatever reason.
For example, in 2016, out of under-one-year children targeted population of 256,406 about 100,000 were not fully vaccinated with all the doses of vaccines currently available in the country.
And about 50,000 children did not receive any of the vaccines at all.
This places PNG at a risk of disease outbreaks if immediate actions are not in place to get these left-out children vaccinated.
Health experts are now calling for everyone, including parents to help ensure their children are immunised with vaccines that are freely being given in government-run health facilities.
Childhood vaccination has never been about one child and one needle, about a parent’s right to decide in isolation.
It is a community responsibility, a responsibility that objecting parents shirk. Vaccination is about keeping all our children safe.
A year ago, Deputy Health Secretary Elva Lionel said immunisation coverage in PNG (nationwide) is low and if the trend continues, experts predict that an outbreak of diseases and infections for children in the next two years.
It is time to check if there has been a change since then.
The immunisation coverage level required by WHO was 80 per cent but most of the provinces were showing about 60 per cent coverage.
PNG currently has less than 75 per cent of immunisation coverage.
Having a low immunisation coverage rate means a high percentage of children are not protected against preventable diseases such as measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis, whooping cough, hepatitis B, diphtheria and meningitis.
This is definitely not good news.
Information out of the Unicef PNG office says hundreds of children and women in PNG miss out on the life-saving immunisation because they live in remote isolated areas. And that has led to an increase in the death of children under five from vaccine-preventable diseases.
There are still many Papua New Guinean children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough, meningitis, pneumonia, and neonatal tetanus and many suffer permanent damage.
Everyone has a big responsibility to continue working and working extra hard until PNG reaches a point that we feel we have a reason to celebrate.
The wheels of change in the immunisation programme must turn, and turn in the right direction and accelerate to get the coverage of 95 per cent or even 100 per cent, or closer.
That is a huge task.