IRC Launches Immunization Campaign in Iraq

International Rescue Committee
Sunday, 22 June 2003

Thousands of children and women of childbearing age were immunized against polio, tuberculosis and tetanus today, as the International Rescue Committee launched an immunization campaign in and around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

"We are protecting children against preventable diseases that are not only associated with significant acute morbidity and possible death, but also the risk of long-term side effects such as paralysis and brain damage," says IRC health coordinator Sarah Moberley.

Under a baking hot, corrugated iron roof in the dusty village of Altun Kupri some 40 kilometers north of Kirkuk, women and children wait in line. Eventually they make their way to the makeshift vaccination centre, housed in village elder Sheik Kadir's front yard.

Moberley is drawing up vaccine into syringes, calling the next in line to roll up the left sleeve. Her Iraqi counterpart, community health worker Saadi Said Mahmud, drips polio vaccine in the mouths of children. Some of them seem completely unconcerned; others cry or nervously eye the syringes laid out on a chair. Most of the villagers already have immunization cards dating previous inoculations, but some have to consult with the local doctor, Eisam Eizaddin Abdulmajeed.

"I was vaccinated once, but that was long ago and I'm mot sure what it was for," says Khalid Khanzad Ahmed, who has brought her sons Muhammed, 4, Ahmed, 3 and Assad, 1. "They have never been vaccinated and now I feel relieved," she adds.

The IRC hopes to expand the campaign, carried out in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Health and UNICEF, to ensure that vaccination services are routinely available to the currently underserved, rural population in and around Kirkuk. As the campaign progresses, a total of about 140,000 children are expected to be given protection against polio, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, tuberculosis and hepatitis B. In addition, about 33,000 women of childbearing age will be immunized against tetanus.

"Immunization services have been disrupted due to the war and there was widespread post-war looting. Badly needed vaccines have only recently arrived in Kirkuk," Sarah Moberley explains.

The IRC organized the logistics of the campaign and is working with local health workers to carry it out. "We're also providing support to the Ministry of Health, to ensure that it has capacity to continue such campaigns, even in remote areas, and that the quality of service is high," says Moberley.

For more information, or to contact International Rescue Committee, see their website at: www.theirc.org