Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has launched a measles vaccination campaign in Jebel Marra, Sudan, with a view to vaccinating 95 percent of children between nine months and 15 years old.
The humanitarian organisation also hopes to provide the children with vitamin A supplements as part of its malnutrition prevention and treatment plan.
Measles is a leading cause of death for children across Africa. Malnourished children are more likely to get severe measles, particularly if they do not have sufficient vitamin A in their diets.
Development Diaries reports that vaccinations by MSF are expected to be carried out in Tore, Dilli, Koya, Tale/Motor, Torung Tonga and Gulangbang.
‘Since July, hundreds of suspected cases of measles have been reported across Jebel Marra, an isolated and mountainous region of Darfur’, MSF said in a statement, adding that it received the first suspected measles patient at its Kalo Kitting clinic on 17 July.
‘By [0]7 August, MSF’s clinics had received 849 children with suspected measles, of whom 824 were under the age of five years, as well as 11 deaths’.
It is understood that Sudan’s Ministry of Health has so far confirmed seven cases by laboratory.
‘We are receiving babies with measles under the age of nine months, which indicates that their mothers have also never been vaccinated’, MSF Project Coordinator in Jebel Marra, Anna Bylund, said.
According to the medical workers, children in Jebel Marra are already suffering as a result of widespread malnutrition and food insecurity.
‘Of 1,594 children screened for malnutrition up to [0]7 August, MSF found 220 children with moderate acute malnutrition and 71 with severe acute malnutrition’, the statement added.
Jebel Marra is under the control of the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) and has not been accessible for routine national immunisation campaigns for many years.
The SLA-AW is one of the two remaining armed groups that has not signed the Juba Peace Agreement with the government. With the government barred from the area, MSF is one of the few organisations able to operate fully in the region.
‘We hope this vaccination campaign will be the first of several to protect the people of Jebel Marra from further outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases’, Bylund added.
Also speaking, MSF Head of Mission, Jean-Nicolas Dangelser, said, ‘This vaccination and treatment campaign would not be possible without the collaboration of the whole community.
‘The people of Jebel Marra are supporting in every aspect of the campaign, from transport to community outreach and sensitisation, as well as alerting MSF to suspected cases.
‘It [has] been incredible to see how committed the local community is to preventing the further spread of measles’.
MSF and the community are also cooperating with the Ministry of Health, World Health Organisation (WHO), UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on supply and logistics, including vaccines, cold chain and transportation.
Source: MSF
Photo source: Anna Bylund/MSF
