African Vaccination Week Launched in The Gambia

03 September 2014

The African Vaccination Week (AVW) which is scheduled to be observed during the last week of April every year was launched by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF and partners at the Atlantic Hotel in Banjul on 3rd September 2014.

The theme for this year 2014 was, “Vaccination a shared responsibility”, and its slogan was vaccinated communities; Healthy communities.
The Hon. Minister launched the week by stating that we could not observe this important activity together with our other sister countries because the country was so involved in the Ebola preparedness activities. He then went on to commend WHO for this initiative which was endorsed by the 60th session of the WHO Regional Committee Meeting in 2010. He highlighted that it was an integral part of the World Immunization Week (WIW), a global movement endorsed by the World Health Assembly in May 2012. Hon. Sey said it was every person’s need and right (in particular women and children) to be protected from vaccine preventable diseases.

He noted that this is the second year The Gambia is participating in this important activity. The object of the AVW he went on was to strengthen immunization programmes in the African Region, through advocacy and appropriate communication strategies and increase the awareness of the general population on the importance and value of immunization as well as to promote the integration of other child survival interventions.

These can only be achieved if we use the following strategies; advocacy and educational activities; communication and media activities targeting the general population and expansion of immunization and other integrated services, he concluded.
Hon. Omar Sey, thanked the participants for their turn-out and commended the EPI Unit for maintaining DPT3 coverage of above 95% for the past 7 years.

Mr. Momodou Gassama, Health Promotion and Communications officer representing the WHO Representative Dr. Charles Sagoe-Moses, dilated on the success of the Immunization programme and UN’s support to the programme. He thanked the Government of the Gambia for the good work that it is doing. He attributed the success in the control of vaccine preventable diseases in West Africa to the continuous availability of the vaccines and also the awareness of the community and their uptake of the services coupled with the willingness of services providers.

He gave a rundown of the estimated number of children who die before their fifth birthdays from preventable conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa and the lives saved annually as a result of immunization. He indicated that the services have to be taken not only by mothers but should involve fathers and other members of the community to uptake vaccination as we still have some children who are not immunized or are under immunized.

Mr. Gassama however noted that the challenge of co-financing of vaccines as GAVI was co-financing 95% of these new vaccines. He appealed to the private/public sector to contribute their quota to ensure that every child within our community is fully vaccinated. This he stated was in line with this year’s theme, “Vaccination A share Responsibility”.

He finally thanked the MOH&SW and reminded the gathering that immunization was one of the most important cost effective health interventions.

Mr. Dawda Sowe, National Manager - Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) highlighted the importance of public/private participation as these vaccines were administered free to beneficiaries. Currently the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI) is providing the needed funds to purchase these vaccines with support from the UN Systems and partners, and for sustainability the public / private sector must come on board to complement Government’s efforts for the continuity of the immunization programmed in The Gambia.

A cross section of donor organizations, the public and private sector and other line ministries’ personalities attended the meeting.

A key recommendation that came out at the end of the deliberations was for the EPI Unit to come up with a project proposal and conduct a national donor conference to get partners on board. Donors will only come in when they are well sensitized and have a stake in the project.