Devdiscourse
Saturday July 16, 2022
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ECHO’s partner, the World Health Organisation, will also support this effort by providing the necessary material to reinforce lab and surveillance capacities. Image Credit: Flickr
The European Union is committing an additional €450,000 of
humanitarian funding to support the fight against life-threatening measles
outbreaks in Somalia. With measles cases on the rise in 2021-2022, this funding
will support the EU-funded CAAFIMAD consortium led by Action Against Hunger
(ACF) in contributing to the reduction of morbidity and mortality from measles.
CAAFIMAD partners will work through a combination of
district-wide mass vaccination for children under 15 years old, medical
management of complicated cases, vitamin A supplementation of children under 5
years old, and screening for malnutrition followed by appropriate management.
This intervention builds on efforts undertaken this year in support of measles
vaccination in Somalia, under the steer of the Ministry of Health, together
with other humanitarian health partners.
Currently, vaccination coverage among displaced children
under 15 years of age is extremely low as displaced households come from
hard-to-reach areas with limited to no previous humanitarian assistance,
including basic health services.
This intervention will scale up outbreak control efforts in
the most-affected districts of Galkacyo South, Baidoa, Afgoye and Bardhere in
south-central Somalia.
"Today, hundreds of thousands of Somalis, most
critically women and children, face famine. Thousands will die preventable
deaths in the absence of interventions such as this expanded measles
vaccination and treatment effort. Severely malnourished children are nine times
more likely to die of measles and other preventable diseases – --immediate
availability of treatment is therefore of highest importance," said Javier
Rio Navarro, Head of the EU Humanitarian Aid Office in Somalia.
ECHO's partner, the World Health Organisation, will also
support this effort by providing the necessary material to reinforce lab and
surveillance capacities. UNICEF continues to support measles vaccination and
other critical vaccination campaigns in Somalia by providing vaccines through
the Global Vaccine Alliance, GAVI. (With Inputs from APO)