Nyala, August 6(Darfur 24)
The Director of Expanded Immunization program at the Ministry of Health in South Darfur, Salma Adam Ahmed, revealed that her ministry received large quantities of vaccines for children and women of childbearing age, coming from the immunization program of the Federal Ministry of Health.
The Director of Immunization told “Darfur 24” that the vaccines arrived after a long journey of suffering due to the autumn conditions and rough roads, noting that they included “rota, pneumococcal, meningococcal, tuberculosis, yellow fever, muscular paralysis, measles, tetanus, pentavalent and oral paralysis.”
She confirmed that the received vaccines are sufficient for all 21 localities of the state.
The director said the vaccines were reviewed and found to be matching with the Federal Immunization Administration and carefully stored in the cold chain with full supervision and temperature monitoring.
Salma revealed the major challenges they face, represented by the lack of budgets to transport vaccines to the state’s localities in order to activate routine vaccination, indicating that the transportation and operation plan has been submitted to the supporting agencies in the hope that the pace of providing support will accelerate so that her administration can continue working on the second dose for children and women of childbearing age to protect them and protect them from diseases.
The headquarters of the Immunization Administration in Nyala was completely vandalized, the cold chains were burned, small refrigerators and quantities of vaccines were stolen, and all the program’s means of movement were looted, during the war period.
The vandalism resulted in children and women of childbearing age being deprived of vaccination for a whole year, before the state received its first vaccine share after the outbreak of the war last April.