vaccine-preventable killers of children under five years of age worldwide. The program, when fully operational, will protect the entire birth cohort of the Palestinian territories - approximately 110,000 children annually - from these serious diseases.
The program is made possible with funding from the Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation (Zayed Foundation).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 800,000 to one million children under the age of five years die every year from pneumococcal diseases. Prevention with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is the best defense for infants. Infants in developed countries including neighboring Israel already routinely receive the vaccine.
Because of the urgent need for the vaccine, representatives of the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian National Authority (MOH) asked the RVF to assist in making possible the universal vaccination of infants in the West Bank and Gaza. The RVF has partnered with the MOH, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the Zayed Foundation to carry out the program.
As with all RVF-supported programs, the pneumococcal vaccination program in the Palestinian territories is being implemented entirely by local health care workers. The RVF will assist with training of medical workers, social mobilization, and oversight of the program.
In its first year the program will begin with a pilot phase targeting the most vulnerable children in two districts of the West Bank. Two additional districts in the West Bank will be targeted for vaccination in the second year of the program. By 2012, all newborns in the West Bank and Gaza—approximately 110,000 infants—will be vaccinated against pneumococcal disease as part of the routine children’s vaccination schedule.
The MOH will assume full responsibility for financing the program after the third year. This requirement of sustainability is an inherent part of all RVF programs.
To read more about the RVF’s Pneumococcal vaccination program in the Palestinian territories,
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