Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
A vaccination campaign against cholera will be launched in Taiz Governorate (southwest Yemen) on Saturday, implemented by the Expanded Immunization Program at the Public Health and Population Office in the governorate.
The health education and media department in Taiz stated in a press release that “the campaign aims to vaccinate 1,532,000 citizens in 16 districts of the governorate.”
It added that “281 fixed teams, 1,338 mobile teams, and 325 supervisors are participating in the campaign, in addition to nearly 600 community health workers and volunteers who are participating in education, awareness, and community mobilization.”
The statement indicated that the campaign aims to reduce the spread of the epidemic and reduce deaths, calling on all citizens in all targeted districts to cooperate positively with the campaign, facilitate the work of field teams, and be keen to take the vaccine.
It confirmed that the vaccine is effective and safe and has been given to more than 30 million doses to people at risk of cholera outbreaks worldwide and no side effects have been identified.
It explained, “The vaccine is imported, transported, and stored safely and under strict supervision from the Ministry of Public Health and Population.”
The latest statistics issued by the epidemiological surveillance at the health office indicate that the number of deaths from acute watery diarrhea and cholera reached 54 cases since the beginning of the year until today, while the number of cases reached 9,311 cases, of which 1030 cases were confirmed by laboratory tests.
For his part, the director of the epidemiological surveillance department at the health office, Yassin Abdul Malik, said in a special statement that “vaccination is the best solution to prevent the epidemic and achieve the necessary immunity.”
Abdul Malik called on all citizens to take the cholera vaccine and interact positively with the vaccination campaign that was launched today, calling on all social, professional, and religious figures to contribute effectively to the success of the campaign.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health in the Yemeni government launched a campaign to vaccinate more than 3 million people against the epidemic, in cooperation with the World Health Organization and UNICEF; this phase will cover 6 governorates, with the participation of 7,000 workers.
Cholera is one of the health problems caused by the war, as it first appeared in 2016. Since then, this epidemic has been killing Yemenis and increasing their suffering despite the great efforts made by the state in partnership with international organizations, but the epidemic continues to disrupt people’s lives.
