Rwanda held a campaign on March 11 of a measles-rubella vaccination.
It is the first country to get to get donor support to do so. The campaign
extended for three days and millions of children up to age 14 and to integrate this
to cover vaccination by its national health service. Rubella, very similar to
measles, is mild in children but can cause serve damages to pregnant women and permanent
damages to the baby. The move was to make identify rubella, since it is similar
to other rashes, and provide a more expensive vaccination. A number of mothers,
mostly in Africa, South Asia and the pacific island give birth to handicap due
to rubella infection. The tiny country has taking initiative and since 2007, there
are zero number of cases of measles and about 90 percent of Rwanda children
have been vaccinated. While in wealthy countries measles kills small number of
children whose mother miss their vaccination, in poor countries measles kills
many although can be contaminated by vaccination easily.
This article is like many and the problem of lack of
vaccination is all over poor countries, especially those in Africa but the
numbers here are better. To have 0 cases of an infection that once killed many infants
for couple of years show that the fight against it is strong and continuous. We
also see that not only is funding but awareness of the important of vaccination
and mother cooperation is crucial in fighting such disease. Another obstacle usually
faced is being aware of symptoms and in this case, mismatching rubella or measles
with regular rashes. We hope to see such moves worldwide and the facts that
such a country as Rwanda was able to reach such success proves that it is
possible for other countries and other disease by intense, continuous work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/health/after-measles-success-rwanda-to-get-rubella-vaccine.html?ref=research
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