PRESIDENT of the Paediatric Association of Jamaica Tracia James-Powell last week raised questions about the Ministry of Health’s plan to maintain a high immunisation uptake once their recently launched Measles Prevention Campaign – which is set to run from February 16 to May 8, 2015 – ends.

Speaking at the launch of the campaign last Monday, Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson had said there was a gap as it relates to the second dosage of the measles vaccine, with immunisation statistics fluctuating from a low of 81 per cent in 2011 to a high of 94 per cent in 2013, with the coverage for the second dose being even lower.

At present, under the country’s 1986 Public Health Act, it is the duty of every parent to have their child fully vaccinated by their first birthday with them receiving booster shots thereafter. The regulations also require that children under seven years old are adequately vaccinated for their age, prior to entry to school.

It is reported that failure to comply with the regulations can result in prosecution in a court of law, and that exemptions are allowed, but only for medical reasons.

“We have had the policy of enforcing that children should have their immunisation up to date for entry into school… however, we have seen that the coverage has fallen off with children in the four to six year group,” James-Powell said at the camapaign launch at the Office of the Prime Minister, which is to see some 195,000 children being targeted for mass immunisation.

“What is the ministry going to do differently after the campaign has finished to ensure that our immunisation uptake remains high? Because it is not that we did not have the policy in place before, and yet we still had a falling off.” the president said.

Responding to James-Powell, acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Marion Bullock-DuCasse said the current campaign will help, but that other things are in place.

“The difference is really the earlier administration of the second dose, the routine programme at 18 months, and also to maintain our vigilance in the schools, in the communities to ensure that our health teams are following up on what we call the dropouts – those who have not come in for their immunisation at the appropriate time,” she said.

Bullock-DuCasse added that the ministry was also requesting the ongoing cooperation of the private sector division, which includes organisations like the Paediatric Association of Jamaica.

Measles signs and symptoms, which typically include fever, dry cough, runny nose, sore throat, inflamed eyes (conjunctivitis), and skin rash, appear 10 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.

The health ministry’s mass immunisation campaign, which will cost $54.4 million, will largely focus on the provision of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, including the booster dose, but it will also provide other vaccines available in the public sector which children from ages one to six, may have missed, to ensure that children are fully immunised for their age.

“When the region of the Americas eliminated locally transmitted measles in 2002, it was largely accomplished through a mass immunisation campaign such as the one that is now under way,” Dr Ferguson said recently.

It was in 1991, that Jamaica eliminated locally transmitted measles.