April 22 to 29 is being observed as vaccination week of the Americas. In Belize, public health and rural health nurses will be working additional hours to see that all children from newborns to 5 year olds are fully immunized. Melinda Guerra is the mother and child health coordinator for the Belize District and she explains what the aim of the campaign is and how you can be included.
Melinda Guerra,
"We have three aims: one is to maintain measles interruption, to continue the prevention of the rubella, and to maintain the eradication of polio."
Alfonso Noble,
Are there children who don't either fall into the clinic system or into the private setting?
Melinda Guerra,
"We do have those children who do not attend clinic and this is where we will focus all our strengths and some children will come and register at the clinic but then after a certain period of time they fail to continue complying with the vaccination schedule so we hope to get those children, target those children. So we hope all children be updated during this week of activities and the month of May here for the country of Belize with their vaccines."
Alfonso Noble,
So but are there many of these children who fall out of the system, who don't continue the treatment or the vaccines that they should?
Melinda Guerra,
"We do have quite a number of these children and that is why every week we have outreach service such as home visits, mobile to rural areas, because we do have a number of children who are not up to date with their vaccines. So we would like to urge the parents to bring your children, check your vaccination card that they have. Each child is supposed to have a card so check it. If you are not familiar with the schedule, they can bring it to the rural health nurse or check with the doctor to see if the child is up to date with their vaccine."
While vaccination week is from the 22 to the 29th of this month, the Ministry of Health will continue its efforts up through to the end of May.
