Health

281,044 vaccinated during Men C vaccination program last year

February 12, 2019 6:53 am

Over two-hundred and eighty-one thousand children below the age of 19-years were vaccinated during the mass meningococcal vaccination program.

Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete confirms their target population was 309,145 children.

He says out of these 281,044 children were vaccinated while 28,101 remain to be vaccinated.

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“The percentage unvaccinated is nine percent. Of all the children in the school all 100 percent of them were vaccinated. The Ministry will continue to provide men-c vaccination to all children reaching the age of one and for all those who are eligible but have not been vaccinated and we are using our contacts in the field, all our facilities to be able to try and ascertain these children of ours to ensure they have these protective vaccination done.”

The Ministry had recorded 85 cases on Men C from January 1st to November 25th last year of which 36 were laboratory confirmed, 10 probable, and 39 suspected cases.

There were six confirmed deaths, of which five were children under the age of five while one was an adult.

The Health Ministry had launched a nationwide Meningococcal vaccination campaign which ended on 31st October last year.