Maputo — Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido said in Maputo on Thursday that his Ministry's target is to have every child, up to two years of age, vaccinated against the main killer diseases during the next vaccination campaign.
Addressing a National Meeting on Preventable Diseases and the National Vaccination Programme (PAV), Garrido said that meeting this target calls for a deep change in the structure and management of the PAV, from central level down to the health units.
He added that this three day meeting will seek ways to restructure the PAV at all levels, and introduce, by 2014, additional vaccines.
The vaccination programme in Mozambique still faces problems such as shortage of staff, poor training for the management of the programmes, and the poor sensitivity of the provincial health directors and chief doctors to vaccination activities.
Garrido explained that these problems are reflected in the deficient logistics for the vaccination programmes, which leads to interruption of activities when stocks of vaccines run out, and thus many children are unable to complete the full vaccination programme.
The meeting will also to discuss ways to eradicate measles by 2015, and how to obtain a certification of the eradication of polio and the elimination of neo-natal tetanus.
Since the last such meeting, in June 2006, the Health Ministry has been striving to improve the results of the PAV, and the coverage of the last measles vaccination drive was estimated at about 100 per cent, with 3.4 million children receiving the vaccine.
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