Qatar is starting national school vaccination drive from today. It has been clear from various studies conducted all over the world, including the ones by World Health Organisation (WHO), that the vaccination has saved millions of lives. And consistent and continuing efforts are needed to maintain the robust health parameters of a country to protect the nation’s wealth.
According to the WHO, there are about 20 million unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children in the world. Each year, over 1.4 million children die from diseases that could be prevented with readily available vaccines.
Through the Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (Tdap) National School Vaccination campaign, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has highlighted the importance of vaccination. Dr Soha Al Bayat, Head of Vaccination Unit, Health Protection and Communicable Disease Control Department at the MoPH, said that vaccination is the best-proven measure to protect children and adults from infectious and communicable diseases. “If we are committed as a community, we can achieve success and help in eliminating diseases. One of our aims in having vaccination campaigns is to control and eliminate diseases from the community and world,” she said.
The eighth annual vaccination drive will continue for three weeks targeting around 9,000 students in independent and private schools. Children, adults and schools should be educated alike on the benefits of vaccination.
And it’s a commendable job by authorities spreading the awareness and making sure that each child is vaccinated against different diseases. It’s to be mentioned that all babies born in Qatar receive scheduled immunisation against diseases.
A recent report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the number of measles cases across the continent tripled last year and is continuing to cause new outbreaks due to low immunisation rates and it makes more relevant how important is the vaccination. It’s really an eye-opener for health officials across the globe that even in the advanced world, the highly contagious disease which is vaccine preventable is still sickening thousands of children and young adults. The case of Italy is also to be noted. The government there approved a law obliging parents to vaccinate their children or will be liable for fines.
Apart from the school vaccination drive, Qatar is also miles ahead in immunisation and vaccination activities among all kinds of diseases. The Qatar’s National Immunisation Programme includes a wide spectrum of vaccines and it covers for more than 14 diseases and it is considered as one of the advanced programmes in the region and ranked in the same level of such programmes of western countries.
All these things show how Qatar and its leadership are taking care of the well-being of its people through its various organisation such as MoPH, Hamad Medical Corporation and the Primary Health Care Corporation, which are always in the forefront raising awareness among the public about the importance of vaccination.
