AMERICA/HAITI - Vaccination campaign against deadly childhood diseases

Monday, 29 April 2013

Port au Prince (Agenzia Fides) - After one year since the launch of a campaign of vaccination against various childhood diseases, including measles and polio, Haiti is ready for a similar project against tetanus and rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea and death every year for than 2200 children under 5 years of age. More than half of all cases of neonatal tetanus in the world are ts in Haiti, where there is the highest infant mortality rate, with 57 per 1000 live births, and that of the lowest vaccination in the Americas. The aim of local authorities and international NGOs is to save the lives of more than 250,000 children under 5 years of age from rotavirus, as well as to protect 1 million 200 thousand women between the ages of 15 and 49, against tetanus and its neonatal form. Last year, thanks to a health initiative, it was possible to make the pentavalent vaccine to 200,000 children against five diseases including diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. The rotavirus vaccine is to prevent lethal diarrhea and dehydration caused by the highly contagious virus and resistant to antibiotics of infants between six and ten weeks of life. Diarrhea is a major cause of death among children under five in Haiti. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 29/04/2013)


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