Health Ministry to start measles, rubella vaccination campaign March

CAIRO – 24 January 2020: Ministry of Health on Monday announced the implementation of the national campaign to vaccinate children against measles and rubella, also known as German measles, in all Egyptian governorates, from March 8 to March 26.

Alaa Eid, a health ministry official, told Egypt Today that the campaign will vaccinate children of ages ranging from 9 months to 10 years in the border governorates, including Aswan, the Red Sea, the New Valley, North Sinai, South Sinai and Matrouh.

Eid said the campaign is preventive and aims to keep the rate of these diseases low in Egypt. He noted that the border provinces are more vulnerable to injury due to geographical closeness to neighboring countries.

Egypt has become free from these viruses, Eid said, adding that cases detected in the country are always people coming from abroad.

Earlier in February, the Egyptian Ministry of Health launched the national anti-polio campaign with an aim to vaccinate 16.5 million children. The campaign includes Egyptian and foreign children from the age of one day to five years old.

An official source told Egypt Today that children should get the vaccination once, adding that it is safe and important for children to be immunized against the disease and that the vaccination will be provided to children under the supervision of the World Health Organization.

In 2018, Egypt entered the final phase of eradicating the disease completely and to ensure that there are no new cases due to any viruses coming from abroad.

The global strategy in polio eradication recommends introducing an additional dose via injection to the dose of oral vaccination in the fourth month, the remaining six doses to remain oral.