Measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo: an urgent wake-up call to adapt vaccination implementation strategies.

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Public Health Action. 2014 Mar 21;4(1):6-8. doi: 10.5588/pha.13.0099.

Measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo: an urgent wake-up call to adapt vaccination implementation strategies.

Gerard SP¹ Kyrousis E² Zachariah R³.

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Abstract

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All countries in Africa have made a commitment to eliminate measles by 2020. This is laudable as measles elimination will have a crucial impact on reducing childhood mortality. An important operational challenge is the resurgence of measles outbreaks in a number of countries; one of the main reasons for this is that many children are being missed by vaccination programmes. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) outbreaks continue unabated despite repeated vaccination campaigns and high reported coverage by the Ministry of Health. This paper brings into question the effectiveness of the current approach and the need for better reflection on bottlenecks and strategies that can address this issue. If we are to eliminate measles by 2020 there will be a need for impetus a need for decisive action to reach that goal and prevent unnecessary childhood deaths in countries such as the DRC.