By Septimus Senessie in Kono
With the theme “Healthy family, healthy future”, the District Health Management Team (DHMT) in collaboration with UNICEF on 24 January launched a children vaccination week otherwise called “Mammy en pikin well body week” at the Koidu city hall, Kono District.
According to the District Medical Officer, Dr. Francis Jayah the four-day exercise from 25– 28 January will be looking at five core interventions including oral polio vaccinations for children 59 months and younger, Vitamin A for children within the ages of 6 - 59 months, de-worming for children within the ages of 12-59 months, defaulter tracing for children who have not taken subsequent interventions over the previous months, and the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV\AIDS.
The DMO said that they were targeting 1,300,000 children and 5,000 mothers in Kono District alone, adding that they had employed hundreds of vaccinators in all of the 14 chiefdoms in the district. He encouraged breast-feeding mothers in the district to ensure that their children were vaccinated to prevent them from contracting the polio virus which he said totally deformed the children, warning that “prevention is better than cure”.
Launching the campaign the UNICEF regional health officer for Northern Region and health coordinator for Kono district, Diana Koroma said that her organization was working towards the survival of children in the country. She said that to achieve this they were partnering with the government of Sierra Leone through the ministry of health and sanitation to provide drugs to all government hospitals in the country.
She encouraged mothers to take up the offer by allowing their children to be vaccinated against dreadful diseases that would hinder the potential growth of their children.
However, over 90% of suckling mothers at the launch were apparently teenagers. One of the senior nurses at the government hospital, Sister Ella Sower confirmed to Politico that the rate of teenage pregnancy was on the increase. She attributed it to poverty, poor parental care, low level knowledge of reproductive health and the government less support to girl child education.
