POST 01161E : MEASLES VACCINATION AND BHS

POST 01161E : MEASLES VACCINATION AND BHS Follow-up on Post 01154E 23 September 2007 ____________________________________ The following comment is from Anthony Battersby from the United Kingdom. I make further comments on this issue below. ____________________________________ Do not even think of selecting measles immunisation as a proxy for access to basic health services, it will simply encourage measles campaigns. A well known country in West Africa has well demonstrated that measles campaigns do nothing to strengthen basic health services and indeed actually hinder development of basic health services. Anthony Battersby FBA Health Systems Analysts ------------------------ The point is not to stir up controversy. When defining Millenium goals, a number of targets were also identified and measles vaccination was selected as a target for MDG4. At the time, measles was obviously as stated in the report (p. 15) , one of the main causes of preventable child deaths. I believe that nobody would question that this choice of target was indeed very opportune. Nevertheless I quite agree with Anthony that measles vaccination coverage, or any other antigen that is also administered through campaigns, is not the ideal candidate for being a proxy for access to basic health services. If one refers to the MDG Report however, we must give the precision that it is routine vaccination that is mentioned. Measles reporting at global level includes both routine and campaigns vaccination and it can be indeed questioned whether "accelerated activities to control measles are contributing to the development of health infrastructure..." The last sentence of this same paragraph of the report on other activities channelled through measles campaigns is true in essence but it seems difficult to see the link with basic health services, quite the contrary. In many countries access to vaccination services is not closely correlated to access to basic health services. So can we actually use any antigen for that purpose? Traditionally DPT3 has been used to measure regular and continuous access to vaccination services but there seems to be a big leap going from there to basic health services. What would be in your opinion good indicators to measure such access to basic health services? Do you believe that there should be a single one or a group of these? And can curative services used far more than preventive services be ignored? ______________________________________________________________________________ All members of the TechNet21 e-Forum are invited to send comments on any posting or to use the forum to raise a new discussion or request technical information in relation to immunization services. The comments made in this forum are the sole responsibility of the writers and do not in any way mean that they are endorsed by any of the organizations and agencies to which the authors may belong. ______________________________________________________________________________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : [[email protected]][email protected][/email] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (www.ccisd.org ______________________________________________________________________________