By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: The Ministry of Public Health will introduce a more efficient version of the Poliomyelitis — polio vaccine — from Saturday to meet World Health Organisation’s (WHO) requirements, officials said yesterday.
Between April 17 and May 1, some 155 countries around the world will stop using the trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV), which targets all three strains of wild poliovirus and replace it with bivalent OPV (bOPV), which targets the remaining two wild polio strains, types 1 and 3.
Qatar has been polio-free for 26 years since 1990. The vaccine transition, referred to as the global Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) ‘switch,’ is possible because the type 2 wild poliovirus has been eradicated. The switch is a critical component of the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018 under WHO. “Regarding Poliomyelitis — polio, Qatar is committed to all WHO recommendations; we will switch plan from oral switch from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV, vaccine on April 30,” said Dr Hamad Eid Al Rumaihi, Director, Health Protection and Communicable Disease Control Department at the ministry.
“Staff at all health centres are trained and educated about the switch to make the transition smooth,” he added. World Immunisation Week 2016 being held between April 24 and 30 is focusing on ‘Closing the immunisation gap — Immunisation for all throughout life.’
During the week, a renewed global, regional and national level effort is taken to accelerate action to increase awareness and demand for immunisation by communities, and improve vaccination delivery services. “The theme for this year is ‘Closing the immunisation gap’. This is the second year with a similar aim with six goals and among that we have achieved a lot. We managed to eradicate Poliomyelitis – polio, we had the last case of polio in 1990,” said Dr Al Rumaihi. “We have also eradicated tetanus. The only remaining disease is measles, we have a few cases and are planning to conduct a national immunisation campaign in October for children from one to 13 years,” he added.
The ministry also has a vaccination campaign for the high-risk group of elderly, healthcare workers and people with chronic diseases and people travelling to countries with a risk of certain communicable diseases are also given vaccinations.
Around 500,000 vaccines are given to people a year across all health centres, according to Dr Samya Ahmed Al Abdulla, Regional Director, Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC). We know that probably Qatar is one of the best in vaccines coverage and average vaccination is almost 95 percent. At Well Baby Clinic, we receive almost 50 babies every day between the age of one month and five years.
“We also have other vaccinations for high-risk population; we have adolescent vaccinations and travel vaccines,” she added.
The Peninsula
