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Media urged to dispel doubts about measles

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Nov 3 � Assam will soon have an ambitious Measles Immunisation Drive offering a second opportunity of vaccination to children with the launch of a pilot campaign in Morigaon district. The programme will subsequently be launched in other districts.

From November 8, the campaign will target children between the age group of nine months and 10 years in schools, villages, and remote areas of the district in a phased manner. Morigaon will be one of the six districts of the Northeast where the campaign is being launched initially.

A total of 2,11,229 children will be targeted during the drive, including those who had been vaccinated earlier.

The drive, also described as a Catch-up campaign, has been planned to give a second chance to susceptible group of children and to maintain population immunity against measles and sustain high measles vaccination coverage.

Under the programme, children will be immunised irrespective of their previous measles vaccination status. As the measles virus is extremely infectious, the campaign should reach more than 90 per cent.

This was announced during a media workshop on the immunisation drive organised by NRHM Assam, WHO and UNICEF in Guwahati.

Mission Director, NRHM Assam, Dr JB Ekka, in his presentation described the drive as part of the strategy to lower over all infant mortality rate in the state by expanding vaccination coverage.

He urged the media to partner the stakeholders in the effort, and said media persons could actually create a "positive demand" by making people aware and interested in the campaign. He added that they could contact the NRHM if any omissions or commissions came to their notice.

In his presentation, Dr Jnanendranath Sarma, Head of the Department Paediatrics, GMCH, identified some of the challenges in effective execution of vaccination drives, one of which was scare mongering that made people refrain from getting their children immunised.

Appealing to the media to play a responsible role, Dr Sarma who had been involved in vaccination drives for long, reasoned that a more informed and supportive media could help people have the correct perspective on the benefits of vaccination, and also point out any anomalies if and when such an event occurred.

He believed the media also needed to dispel doubts about measles among people, especially those who perceived the disease as a manifestation of one of the twelve 'Aais', and therefore chose to stay away from doctors. The media, he said, by providing factual information could make people change their attitude so that the disease could be combated and innocent lives saved.

Dr Sarma dispelled doubts over the quality of the measles vaccine by stating that the medicines are produced and approved with the highest levels of checks, and their transport from factory to end-user is done in a highly controlled and secure environment.

Acknowledging that there was still a marginal chance of things going slightly wrong, he noted that this could only be attributed to human error. However, there were protocols which would enable effective interventions in the case of any side effects.

He requested the media to project the real picture about measles, its threats, and its preventable nature among people, so that the campaign could be a complete success in Assam.

During the workshop, it was revealed that the new immunisation drive will not take place on a house-to-house basis, but will be carried out in schools, villages and by mobile units in hard to reach areas. This was essential to ensure that the vaccines were administered in the proper way.

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