Say Yes, Winter 2004: Editorial

Measles is the deadliest of all vaccine-preventable diseases. Every day, two thousand under-five-year olds die from complications caused by the disease -- a total of over 700,000 child deaths per year. The magnitude of such a loss is staggering, not only for families and communities but for countries which can ill afford the loss of the human potential these children represent.

Yet there is absolutely no reason for children to die or to be disabled from Measles when a simple, effective and inexpensive vaccine has been available to combat the disease for more than thirty years.

In December 2003, the Ministry of Health (MOH), in close cooperation with the Ministry of National Education (MONE), launched a campaign to vaccinate all primary schoolchildren under fourteen years of age in Turkey -- the first step in a drive to eliminate Measles in the country. The campaign was a resounding success with 97 per cent of children -- a total of about 9.5 million -- receiving the jab at school during the last three weeks of the year. Counting parents, families, teachers and other members of the community, probably half of the country’s population was touched by this remarkable mobilisation effort.

However, major challenges to the successful elimination of Measles in Turkey remain: later this year phase two of the campaign will focus on children between nine months and six years of age and those who are out-of-school. While the numbers will be approximately the same, this group will be more difficult to reach and the mobilisation effort involved in administering the vaccine to these children will need to be even greater if a high success rate is to be achieved.

A further challenge will be to sustain the effort in the long-term by stepping up the coverage rate for routine immunisation. Although campaigns of this nature are vitally important, routine immunisation of every child at nine months of age against Measles is the bedrock of an effective immunisation system.

Turkey was declared Polio-free in 2002 and experience gained from eliminating the disease has taught us a great deal. Confidence is high among all sectors that with the fine results achieved in phase one of the current Measles Elimination campaign, Turkey is well on the way to repeating that success with Measles.

Edmond McLoughney
UNICEF Representative, Turkey

PS: We’d very much like to hear readers reactions to this issue, so please feel free to contact us with your comments and suggestions.

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