Guinea launches measles vaccination campaign in northeastern region

CONAKRY, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) — Guinean Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah on Saturday launched a measles mass vaccination campaign in the northeastern administrative region of Siguiri.
The vaccination campaign aims to prevent paralysis in several thousand children aged between zero and 59 months and promote healthy growth in the targeted children.
Launching the vaccination campaign, the prime minister said it was “a duty and an obligation to the population.” “Children must be protected and mothers must be made aware of the need to vaccinate their children against measles.”
Highly dangerous and contagious, measles is responsible for the deaths of thousands of children worldwide, according to Oumar Diouhe Bah, Guinea’s minister of Health and Public Hygiene.
Citing World Health Organization statistics, he recalled that in 2022, there were more than 132,000 measles-related deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths were children under the age of five. ■