Help close immunisation gap in Africa - First Lady appeals to international community

The international community, donors and other development partners have been urged to help Africa close the immunisation gap among children.

The First Lady and President of the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA), Mrs Lordina Mahama, made the call when she opened a high-level working lunch organised by OAFLA, in collaboration with the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, on: “Unfinished business with child health in Africa”, at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia during the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of OAFLA.

She said regardless of where children were born, who they were or where they lived, they must survive and urged the First Ladies of Africa and OAFLA members to seize the opportunity to strengthen ties with GAVI in their respective countries.

“The vision of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS is to see An Africa free from HIV and AIDS, maternal and child mortality; where women and children are empowered to enjoy equal opportunities,” she said.

Special Focus

She expressed her appreciation to the GAVI team for the update on the organisation’s activities and  urged the First Ladies to lobby their governments, benevolent organisations, international non-governmental organisations as well as corporate Africa, to ensure that they finished the business of child health.

According to the First Lady, partnership was paramount to the work of OAFLA and was therefore extremely pleased with the opportunity to share experiences in improving immunisation for children on the continent with GAVI.

 Sharing Ghana’s efforts to improve immunisation coverage as one of the strategies for reduction in child and maternal mortality, Mrs Mahama hinted that the Ministry of Health (MOH) was to introduce two new vaccines to prevent meningitis and to end polio in the country during the routine 2016 immunisation exercise.

Effective vaccines

She said Ghana was on record to have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) since 2011 while cases and deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea in children have drastically reduced since the introduction of effective vaccines.

Mrs Mahama said about two to three decades ago, measles was a major cause of admission and death for children under five in Ghana and was happy to inform the gathering that for the past 13 years no child in Ghana had died from measles.

She said the last time Ghana had a case of polio was also in 2008 and it was poised to make history with the rest of the world in the fight against polio, adding that the government of Ghana prioritised the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) which resulted in about 95 per cent of infants receiving a third dose of DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus) used for primary immunization.

She said by the direct intervention of the President, Ghana had negotiated a graduation plan with GAVI that would enable it to maintain the high standards that it had achieved so far.

Strategic framework

For her part, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,  Ms Anuradha Gupta, said the 2016-2010 strategic framework of the organisation  would guide its mission to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines in lower income countries for the next five years.

She said the framework included operating principles, strategic goals and progress indicators which all aligned with and contributed to the global vaccine plan and the post 2015 sustainability agenda.

She gave an assurance that Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, would continue to support developing countries to introduce and increase access to vaccines so that they would be able to protect every child with a full package of WHO recommended life saving vaccines.