Image for representation only.
The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) is preparing to launch a survey soon to evaluate the recently concluded immunisation campaign against Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR).
The survey will be held in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and find out the number of doses of MMR vaccination children have received and about its contribution to Qatar’s aim in eliminating measles, mumps and rubella by 2020, said Dr Hamad Eid Al Rumaihi, Director, Health Protection and Communicable Disease Control Department at the MoPH.
“MMR was a successful campaign and we were able to vaccinate more than 166,000 children below the age of 13. Now we are planning to conduct a post coverage survey to assess how we succeeded in reaching our goal to eliminate measles mumps and rubella. At present more than 90 percent children are protected from those diseases. This post coverage survey will find how many doses of the vaccine children have received,” he said speaking on sidelines of a workshop on Thursday.
“After two doses of vaccination administered at ages of nine months and 12, children are 95 percent immune to measles. However a third dose is required to prevent any outbreak of measles,” he added.
A total of 166,145 children were vaccinated during the national MMR vaccination campaign which was held from October 17 to November 30 last year. The vaccines provided as part of the campaign were free and aimed at children between 1 and 13 years of age.
Among them, 70,142 children were vaccinated in 125 private schools and 40,176 in 214 government schools. “Our aim is to keep Qatar safe from infectious disease. Qatar is one of the leading countries in implementing vaccination programmes,” said Dr Al Rumaihi.
“But we do have some outbreaks like seasonal influenza, chickenpox and measles. But we have good control on such incidents,” he added.
