Photo taken on December 2, 2024 shows a health professional vaccinating a child at the Coumba Ndofene Diouf school in Dakar, Senegal. The country launched a major national vaccination campaign against measles and rubella from December 2 to 11, targeting all children aged nine months to 14 years. (Xinhua/Papa Demba Gueye)
DAKAR, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) — Senegalese Health Minister Ibrahima Sy on Monday kicked off a national mass vaccination campaign against measles and rubella, targeting all children aged nine months to 14 years, during the period from December 2 to 11, 2024.
The objective is to achieve “vaccination coverage of at least 80% at the national level”, indicated Mr. Sy, during the launch ceremony of the vaccination campaign, organized in Yeumbeul, a town in the suburbs of Dakar.
The vaccination campaign “finds its justification in the recent evaluation carried out on health data from the last four years” and which “showed that the risks of measles have become very significant in our country with a probable large-scale epidemic in both next few years,” he added.
The same assessment revealed that “the disease had moved towards the extreme ages, among those under one year old and those aged over ten years”, he indicated, stressing that the government’s ambition is to offer the country’s children “the chance to be born, live and develop free from vaccine-preventable diseases”. END
Photo taken on December 2, 2024 shows a child being vaccinated at the Coumba Ndofene Diouf school in Dakar, Senegal. (Xinhua/Papa Demba Gueye)
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