In a spirited drive to totally eradicate measles in the region, 375 villages in the Upper River Region (URR) with a joint population of 36,000 children between the age group of 6-9 months have been covered in the measles campaign within 5 days by 33 teams.
Me
asles kills over 700,000 children globally and in The Gambia, it is reported to have been responsible for epidemics that have resulted in the death of children even though it is a vaccine preventable disease.

Mathew Baldeh, Unicef health officer responsible for immunisation and nutrition who doubles as the Unicef representative overseeing URR in the campaign, in an interview with the Daily Observer said the mandate of Unicef as an organisation is basically to ensure the welfare of women and children and measles as a terrible children’s disease falls under the mandate of the organisation.

He added that Unicef, WHO and American Red Cross have formed a partnership to combat the problem of measles through immunisation with a goal to eliminate it.
“W
e are using two strategies towards the elimination of measles. These are routine and supplementary campaigns,” he explained.

According to the Unicef health officer, The Gambia apparently has a high routine measles coverage of 90 per cent. “Despite this, The Gambia continues to conduct campaigns to provide a second opportunity for children between the target age group. This has been proven to be effective in that there has not been a single laboratory confirmed case of the disease from 2005 to date,” he said.

On his impression of the measles campaign in URR, Mr Baldeh said the campaign has achieved high coverage both for measles, Vitamin A and de-worming. “As you can see, 375 villages have been covered within 5 days of the campaign. The teams are now moping up in the villages, if possible to even go beyond the target. I am impressed with what I have seen since the start of the campaign. Everything went on smoothly with smallconstraints but these didn’t hinder the progress of the campaign,” he concluded.