UNB, Dhaka :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that her government is pledge bound to bring down the infant and maternal mortality rate substantially as well as to eliminate measles and control rubella to face the challenges of the 21st century.
She stated her government’s position while officially inaugurating the three-week ‘Measles-Rubella Vaccination’ campaign at a simple ceremony at her official Gonobhaban residence in the morning.
At the inauguration of the country’s biggest vaccination campaign, Sheikh Hasina patted the children taking them on her lap, and encouraged them to take the vaccine.
The Prime Minister said the government is working ceaselessly keeping in mind the goals of eradicating measles, controlling rubella, and retaining the polio-free status of Bangladesh.
She hoped that with the sincere efforts of all, it will be possible to increase the immunization rate of measles and rubella to 95 percent by 2016, also maintain the measles’ elimination status of the children and bring down the rate of rubella disease to 90 percent in comparison to 2010.
The government has already made Bangladesh polio-free by observing 21 national immunization days while no polio patient has been found in the country since detecting the last polio patient on November 22 in 2006.
Seeking cooperation of all to make the vaccination campaign a success, Sheikh Hasina called upon all-parents, guardians, teachers, public representatives and others-to ensure that children around them take the vaccine along with their own kids.
At the same, she directed the government physicians as well as the officials of the Health Ministry to ensure that all the poor and distressed children could take the vaccine. She also put emphasis on coordinated efforts so that not a single child remains out of the campaign.
The Prime Minister said main objective of the nationwide vaccination campaign is to continue the country’s polio-free status along side eliminating measles and rubella diseases.
She said, the government is implementing various programmes with the goal of turning Bangladesh into a middle income country by 2021 and a front ranking developed nation by 2041.
“To achieve the goal, the government has been making all out efforts so the children could be groomed as worthy and healthy citizens with proper education.”
Hasina mentioned that her government has upgraded all the 31-bed upazila hospitals to 50 beds; 100-bed district hospitals to 250 beds; and 250-bed hospitals to 500 beds.
Internet connections with web cameras were provided to the district and upazila level hospitals so the people could consult specialist doctors through mobile phones 24 hours a day, she said.
Health Minister Mohammad Nasim gave the welcome address at the function, chaired by Health Secretary MN Neazuddin.
National Professor Dr MR Khan, Director General of Health Prof Dr Khandakar Sifayetullah, and Bangladesh Medical Association President Prof Mahmud Hasan and its Secretary General Prof Iqbal Arsnal were, among others, present.
Health Ministry officials said that about 5.20 crore children will be given measles-rubella vaccine while 2.20 crore children the polio vaccine during the three-week vaccination campaign. They informed that the vaccination campaign will run from January 25-30 at all primary and secondary schools, kindergartens, madrasahs, maktabs, mosques and other non-formal educational institutions.
Later, the vaccine will be administered everywhere in the community through all the Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI) centers between February 1 and February 13, they said.
Some 67,000 trained EPI workers along with nearly 2.41 lakh volunteers will work together to make the vaccination programme a success.
In Bangladesh, at least 38 children out of each million were attacked by rubella in 2011 and 21 children out of each million in 2012.
In the first week of the campaign, measles-rubella vaccines will be administered to around 3.35 crore students in 171,000 schools, and in the second and third weeks, such vaccines will be administered from 120,000 fixed sites of the Expanded Immunization Program across Bangladesh.
According to the WHO, measles killed 154,000 children while rubella virus attacked 100,000 children worldwide in 2011.
