Drive to immunise all adults in Qatar

As Qatar marks Immunisation Day, an HMC doctor says “prevention is always better in curbing the spread of diseases”. To safeguard the health of the country’s population and to ensure that residents are adequately protected from deadly diseases such as meningitis and hepatitis, the health authorities in Qatar yesterday launched a nationwide campaign for adult immunisation. The campaign has been launched as part of the World Immunisation Day. Both the campaign and the Immunisation Day activities are being organised jointly by the Supreme Council of Health, Hamad Medical Corporation and the Primary Healthcare Department. “Qatar is today joining the rest of the world to mark the Immunisation Day, which is now being observed for a week, thus becoming Immunisation Week because of the realisation of how important vaccines are in preventing communicable and deadly diseases,” HMC’s chairman of Infectious Diseases section at the Medicine Department, Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, said at a press conference yesterday. He said that all people aged 16 and above should go for immunisation. Dr al-Khal said that the week-long campaign would also serve as an opportunity to remind community members about the efficacy of vaccines as well as a means of sensitising young population, who did not realise the value of getting vaccinated against diseases, that it saves lives because they have not witnessed any disease outbreak during their time. “Vaccines are among the safest medicines available worldwide and they are tested before they are licensed to make sure they are safe and to see how well they protect people against disease,” he explained. However, Dr al-Khal said that like all medicines, vaccines are not 100% risk-free as some people may have mild side effects such as slight fever or swelling at the injection site. “It is vital to maintain a 100% coverage for immunisation, especially among children, in order to ensure adequate protection and this is the time to increase awareness of adult vaccination because there is a huge gap between children and adult immunisation due to lack of awareness in the community and among the physicians, who are supposed to educate their patients about the importance of vaccines,” Dr al-Khal said. The official explained that everybody must be immunised, especially those who have not completed their childhood immunisations yet and those who can’t be immunised because they are too young or have certain medical conditions. He said that free vaccines against disease such as influenza, Tdap (combined Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis Vaccines), varicella, mumps, measles and rubella (MMR), meningococcal, pneumococcal, hepatitis A and B, typhoid, yellow fever and anti-rabbies, are available at the Hamad Hospital Outpatient department, Abu Hamour Vaccination Centre and a number of primary healthcare centres in each region of the country. SCH’s Communicable Diseases section manager Dr Mohamed al-Hajri said that the country was observing the Immunisation Day for the third time under the slogan: “Reaching Every Community”. “Our plan is to reach all adults, including elderly people as well as teenagers, especially with our recently concluded campaign at schools during which we were able to record 70% coverage among students. We could not reach our target of 100% due to non-compliance by some parents, who needed to sign a consent form,” he said. Dr al-Hajri said that all healthcare workers were being encouraged to go for the vaccinations apart from educating their patients to do the same. Two special clinics have been dedicated at the Hamad Hospital’s OPD where workers can receive the shots within the next two weeks, he said. HMC Paediatric Department head Dr Ahmed Janahi maintained that immunisation was the best and cheaper way to treat disease. “Prevention is always better in curbing the spread of diseases because even with the strongest antibiotics patients might not respond well,” he said citing meningitis as an instance. ‘Travel Clinic’ The Hamad Medical Corporation will introduce a special clinic within the next three or four months, fully dedicated to vaccinating people who are travelling to countries, especially in Africa and Asia, where deadly diseases could be endemic. The clinic to be named ‘Travel Clinic’ will offer vaccines for endemic diseases such as meningitis, malaria, hepatitis, typhoid and yellow fever as well as other contagious diseases. It is also expected that the clinic will cater to those returnees who fall sick after visiting any of these countries. “We will soon introduce the Travel Clinic as part of the Hamad Hospital’s Outpatient Department services, where people willing to travel to endemic countries can be vaccinated ahead of their travels,” disclosed HMC Infectious Diseases section chairman Dr Abdullatif al-Khal.