Syrian Gov. launches a wide scale vaccine campaign

The Ministry of Health has launched the national campaign for vaccinating children. This campaign will last until the 1oth of next December and it is considered the first time that the ministry allocates two weeks for this vaccine due to the critical and current circumstances that the country is passing through. This long campaign aimed to contain the 3 million children in the remote and rural areas. The vaccines in Syria cost more than SP. 2 bln. They are imported in very critical and hard conditions and ranked the first class according to world standards. Homs governorate has received its allocations of vaccines while Deir ez zour will receive them sooner. The World Health Organization WHO)will deliver the allocated vaccines to Aleppo Governorate.

Minister of Health Saad al-Naief said the campaign will be executed in the health centers. The center’s number now is 1816 while in the past it was 1921, 105 centers became out of service. The campaign will be executed in the mobile caravan clinics and health centers in the desert, countryside and cities. 

Al-Naief said the success of the campaign basically centers on the role played by mothers to take their under 5-year old children to the health centers for vaccination. It is worth noting  that there is no bad affect to give the vaccine to children who catch a cold.

In a meeting held recently with reporters at the Health Ministry in this regard, al-Naief said that the Ministry signed many contracts with the eastern countries to ensure distinctive medicine and vaccines and which will be presented in the market in future.

“Syria has attached great importance to the national programmes of vaccines. By this support, Syria gets rid of Measles and no case of polio has been registered since 1995”, the minister said. 

Al-Naief pointed out that the Ministry has carried out a two-stage national vaccine campaign to children less than five years old in October and November of 2011. The previous campaign was successful because it included large number of children of the country in spite of the awful and difficult circumstances that the country is witnessing and the great risks facing the workers at the health sector during fulfilling their duties in preserving the citizens’ health.

Al-Naief expressed his gratitude to the role played by media in supporting the Health Ministry’s efforts to encourage citizens to pursue the health habits which in turn reduced the number of children deaths under one and five year-old.  

Director of the national vaccination Nidal Abu Rasheed said there is no damage at all to give the vaccine for the children vaccinated previously, adding that the campaign will focus on the shelter centers and the displaced gathering in the governorates due to the current circumstances.

Al-Naief said  “Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi is contacting with the UN and the humanitarian organizations to follow up the operation of vaccinating of the Syrian children who were obliged to leave their homes and move to camps in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey due to the practices pursued by the terrorist groups.

Inas Abdulkareem