The health ministry in Eastern Equatoria State, in collaboration with Health Link South Sudan, World Health Organization, and UNICEF, on Tuesday launched a week-long Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) and Rotavirus vaccination campaign.
According to health officials, pneumococcal disease affects children under the age of 5 and kills an estimated 7,640 children annually. In South Sudan, it is attributed to a high burden of pneumonia due to limited access to health care, unavailability of PCV vaccine, and high rates of malnutrition.
The campaign targets 321,764 children under 5 years of age across Eastern Equatoria State.
Speaking during the launch, Dr. Amin Gordiano Tafeng, the state’s Director of Primary Health Care and Medical Services, said it was a long struggle for his ministry and partners to ensure the vaccine routine was included in the immunization activities.
“The target population that we are expecting in the state to be vaccinated is 321,764, and the target age group is from 12 months to 59 months (under 5 years of age). We are using a fixed strategy and fixed time when all the mothers will bring their children to dedicated or temporary places for vaccination,” he said. “This campaign will cover the whole eight counties and one administrative area, and 496 teams are expected to cover this activity with 124 supervisors. We also have national and state team supervisors in the counties, so we will have over 1984 health care workers who will conduct the activities.”
For his part, Osuru Peter, the UNICEF representative in Torit, said all children must be immunized to be safe.
“All viral diseases are always very complicated, and for us to make sure we manage these diseases, the treatment is self-limited, so it has to go alone. We have to give our children this vaccine so that they are not exposed to this virus and are safe,” he said. “It is very clear that every child has a right to health, and as such, one of the components of health must be immunization.”
Meanwhile, Eastern Equatoria State Health Minister Thomas Kotein acknowledged that there is a high rate of deaths among children due to pneumonia and other viral diseases.
“The mortality rate from pneumonia in the community is very high, and with these vaccines, our children are going to be safe. Since we introduced the one for malaria, and now the one for pneumonia and also rotavirus, it means that almost all the diseases disturbing our children are going to be prevented,” he stated. “We have been treating them, but now we are introducing another mechanism, which is prevention, by providing vaccines.”
“The government in Juba and its partners worked very hard to make sure we have these vaccines, and now they have arrived, and it is now our turn to play our role,” Minister Kotein added.