10 000 Rohingya children are immunized every day in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, as part of the massive Measles and Rubella (MR) outbreak response immunization. The activities are rolled out from the 12 of January until the 12 of February with the aim of reaching 290 000 children aged from 6 months to less than 10 years.
For one month, tireless efforts of thousands of health workers and volunteers are in place for making sure that every child receives the much needed dose of MR vaccine.
However, the journey of the vaccine from vaccine storage point to children is a carefully planned one, involving storing at recommended temperatures, guidance to health workers at distribution points, and special attention when handled by the vaccinators.
“The MR vaccines are very sensitive and have to be kept at constant temperatures between +2 and +8 degree Celsius. Ensuring the correct temperature at all the stages, is called the cold chain and is an essential part of preparing and conducting an MR vaccination campaign” explains Dr Rasel Ahmed, WHO Emergency Immunization Coordinator.
Nearly 100 000 MR vaccine doses are released weekly from the walk in cooler of Cox’s Bazar main storage to Ukhia and Teknaf Upazilla Health Complexes. From here, every early morning the vials are placed in cold boxes, loaded in trucks and delivered to the distribution points in the camps.
132 vaccination teams are ready to receive the cold boxes, each containing vaccines for around 300 children, and the orange bag with syringes, safety boxes for disposing the used syringes, vaccine diluent and other necessary equipment.
Every day, the teams are covering one of the 34 camps in Cox’s Bazar, and after receiving the vaccines, they are heading to the designated vaccinating spots where they display a yellow Moni flag- Bangladesh immunization logo, to indicate to the community the immunization site.
“The campaign has been preceded by a very minutious planning that meant registering all the eligible children, carefully choosing the vaccination places for every day of the campaign, and daily preparing the vaccines for each team, according to the number of children that they will have to immunize” says Dr Ahmed.
Once arrived at the immunization points, the vaccines face their last obstacle- the fear of needles from the children. But on this occasion the children learn that no matter how big the fear is, they will overcome it. Though they will face more challenges in their life, fortunately measles, or luti as the Rohingyas call the disease, will not be among them.
After the vaccination, the children have their little left fingers marked with ink proofs that they were brave to receive the vaccine. They also receive a vaccination card with a counterfoil that is easing the tracking of unvaccinated people.
“It is essential to make sure that vaccines are safely reaching every child and none is missed. For this reason additional people are in charge of supervising the vaccination teams, making sure that the vaccines are kept and administered according to the guidelines, conducting camps assessments to identify unvaccinated children.” Added Dr Ahmed.
At the end of the day, the boxes are loaded back in the trucks, the unused vials are still kept in low temperatures and they will be the first ones to be used the next day.
Led by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, with support of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and other partners, the campaign has been launched as a response to the measles outbreak that sparked out in the camps. The campaign is funded by Measles and Rubella Initiative.
WHO continues to monitor the campaign through its field monitors and Surveillance medical officers. Data produced is shared with MoH and partners for corrective action.