Guinea Measles Vaccination Campaign To Vaccinate More Than 3 Million Children In One Week

American Red Cross
Monday, 20 October 2003

Eleven-year-old student from Ithaca, New York, travels to Guinea to take part in campaign

The Measles Initiative will carry out its eighth mass measles campaign of the year October 27-November 2 in Guinea. All at-risk children between the ages of nine months and 14 years old will be vaccinated. In addition, vitamin A will be distributed to children under five years old to help improve overall child health. In all, approximately 3.37 million children are targeted to be vaccinated, saving 4,000 lives each year (According to the World Health Organization, 4,000 childhood measles deaths occur annually.) The campaign goal is to bring measles deaths to near zero in Guinea.

According to the World Health Organization (2001), measles kills nearly 800,000 children each year; 450,000 of those deaths are in Africa. Measles is one of the five major causes of childhood illness and is a leading cause of childhood mortality in Guinea. Outbreaks of measles continue to occur seasonally and sporadically in both rural and urban districts of the country.

Gregory Pendergast, a fifth-grader at Caroline Elementary School in Ithaca and his teacher Anita Bellucci will be part of an American Red Cross delegation to take part in the campaign. Gregory is representing his class, which last year studied the problem of measles through a five-week program geared toward elementary school students. The program curriculum incorporates five main areas including reading and writing; kindness and justice; fund raising; nutrition and health; and government and math. The students completed their program with a service learning project to raise funds for the Measles Initiative by sending specially designed postcards to family members. The class raised nearly $800.

"Initially our class took on this project because they had expressed a strong interest in finding a way to donate money for a good cause. I was a little leery about giving up so much class time, since curriculum requirements are steep, and time is a precious commodity. However, the education and perspective the class gained was beyond what I could have imagined. Through their studies and projects, they gained a perspective about life in other countries and global responsibility that I never could have provided for them through our traditional studies," said Anita Bellucci, Gregory's teacher. Gregory and Bellucci will take part in social mobilization with the Guinea Red Cross Society to motivate mothers to bring their children to be vaccinated; visit schools and hospitals to talk to children, mothers and teachers; and visit with Guinean officials about the importance of vaccination.

Mass vaccination campaigns are key to reducing measles deaths in countries where routine immunization does not reach at least 90% of the targeted population. Campaigns are a second opportunity for measles vaccinations with emphasis on hard to reach communities and are carried out for several days for children in the targeted age range. Follow-up campaigns occur three to four years after the initial mass campaigns for children who were born since the first mass campaign.

The Guinea campaign is the eighth of 10 campaigns for year three of the Measles Initiative. In the first two years of the Initiative (2001, 2002) more than 64 million children in 12 countries were vaccinated preventing nearly 100,000 deaths. Countries that have hosted campaigns in 2003 include: Zambia, Angola, Uganda, Eritrea, Lesotho, Namibia, Ethiopia. Remaining countries to host campaigns in 2003 include Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia. As of December 2003, the Initiative will have carried out mass measles vaccination campaigns in 22 countries, vaccinating more than 106 million children and saving nearly 104,000 lives.

Launched in February 2001, the Measles Initiative is a long-term commitment to control measles deaths in Africa by vaccinating 200 million children and preventing 1.2 million deaths over five years. Leading this effort is the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Other key players in the fight against measles include the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and countries and governments affected by measles. While the Measles Initiative is focused in Africa where the majority of measles-related deaths occur, partners also work on a wide-range of health initiatives around the world, including measles control and other vaccination services outside of Africa.

For more information about the Measles Initiative, log on to www.measlesinitiative.org. To make a financial contribution, call 1-800 HELP NOW or to make a secure online donation, log on to www.measlesinitiative.org.

For more information, or to contact American Red Cross, see their website at: www.redcross.org