2023-05-04 21:05:05
Every last week of April, for World Vaccination Week, it’s time to focus and multiply activities on the indisputable usefulness of this immunization which has completely changed the evolution, even the existence of certain diseases. infections that are eliminated by vaccines, whether in children or adults.
Do you know that Lebanon has had no cases of acute anterior poliomyelitis (polio) for over twenty years? The last reported case of polio was in 2003 in the locality of Cheikh Ayache, in the plain of Akkar, imported by a Lebanese citizen returning from a stay abroad. And so the officials of the Ministry of Health mobilized all their forces to plan a vast campaign of vaccination and sensitization among parents in this region. Good surveillance has been maintained ever since and tirelessly in order to stabilize a sufficient rate of vaccination coverage to prevent any return (outbreak) of this debilitating, sometimes fatal disease.
Despite the current, versatile and deficit situation in Lebanon, the Ministry of Health has created a primary health care unit, sowing many dispensaries in all regions of the country, providing care and vaccines almost free of charge to all. the citizens. The Ministry of Health also makes its vaccines available to the private sector and to doctors who want them, on two conditions: free vaccines and close collaboration with the ministry through the MERA program if necessary for serious control. , especially statistical. Do you know that the vaccines provided by the ministry are not only free but are also of high quality and guaranteed by WHO and Unicef? Namely, among these vaccines there are some that in the private sector are quite expensive and the price varies between 50 and 100 US dollars. Among these vaccines, let us quote the HIB (Haemophilus), the rotavirus, rather frequent in the viral etiology of diarrhoea, and the pneumococcus, germ sometimes invasive and especially disabling, sometimes mortal or leaving serious consequences in the event of meningitis. Among these sequelae, note a frequent deafness requiring the placement of a cochlear implant, an ultra-specialized and very expensive intervention.
Let’s vaccinate our children by also giving them reminders and respecting the vaccination schedule, the only way to guarantee high vaccination coverage, far from any hesitation that would delay or neglect the decision to vaccinate. It was thanks to vaccines that smallpox was eradicated in the 1980s and soon polio and then measles.
As for the anti-vaccine movements which do not want to admit the innumerable benefits of vaccines, and which go so far as to invent and amplify complications, they only create lobbies declaring themselves ready to support and defend in court the lawsuits brought by parents of children occasionally victims of side effects occurring in their children.
Pediatrician, former president of the SPLN (Lebanese Society of Pediatrics in the North), member of the vaccination committee at the Ministry of Health.
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Every last week of April, for World Vaccination Week, it’s time to focus and multiply activities on the indisputable usefulness of this immunization which has completely changed the evolution, even the existence of certain diseases. infections that are eliminated by vaccines, whether in children or adults. Do you know that Lebanon has…
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