The measles-rubella vaccination campaign started on Saturday all over the country.
According to the Directorate General of Health Service officials, the three-week long vaccination campaign will continue till February 13 and about 5.20 crore children will be given measles-rubella vaccine while 2.20 crore children the polio vaccine during the vaccination campaign.
Claiming it as the one of the largest vaccination campaigns in the world, the director of primary healthcare at DGHS, Abu Zafar Md Musa, said the campaign is aimed at building a measles-rubella free Bangladesh.
‘One dose of measles-rubella (MR) vaccine will be administered to each child between nine months and below 15 years of age, which will help reduce the child mortality rate in the country,’ he said.
He also said two drops of polio vaccine can be given to children under five years of age.
The assistant director of Expanded Programme on Immunization, Tajul Islam A Bari said the vaccination campaign will run from January 25 to January 30 at about 1,71 lakh government and private primary and secondary schools, kindergartens, madrassahs, maktabs, mosques and other informal educational institutions.
‘Later, from January 31 to February 13 the vaccine will be administered at 1.5 lakh EPI centres across the country,’ he said.
About 67,000 trained EPI workers along with about 2.41 lakh volunteers are working together to make the vaccination programme a success.
Abu Zafar Md Musa also said that vaccines cost Tk 287 crore.
‘The target of this programme is to increase the MR vaccination coverage up to 95% within 2016 and reduce the rate of the virus-infected disease by 90% compared to the figures in 2010, he said.
The DGHS officials also said a total of 211 measles and 2,911 rubella patients were found in the country.
-With New Age input
