Radio Miraya
2782: MBS. Launching a Nationwide Rollout of the R21 Malaria Vaccine
the Minister of Health in partnership with UNICEF. The World Health Organisation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, have launched a nationwide rollout of the R21 Malaria vaccine. Now, this is a major step forward in protecting the health and wellbeing of South Sudan's children. All to talk more about this, it's significant, or the milestone in the country, and the countries fight against malaria. We're now joining the studio with Mr. Michael Messphine, who is a UNICEF immunisation specialist. Good morning. Thank you so much for making our time to speak to us today. - You're welcome, thank you. - Right, so can you just tell us more about the significance of this milestone in South Sudan's fight against malaria? - First of all, thank you for inviting me on behalf of UNICEF for this interview. And as you said, South Sudan is one of the countries suffering from malaria, mortality, and morbidity on different times. And reports shows there is high mortality and morbidity related with malaria. In 2022, we have 2.8 million cases, and also 6,000 diseases related with malaria. So the introduction of the new malaria vaccine in line with other prevention and control strategies will help us to reduce this burden of disease and mortality, especially in under five children and also in pregnant mothers. - Right, and I would also want to understand there's a widespread malaria outbreak in most of the states, but residents are reporting a lack of medicine in their facilities. Will the vaccine and a lack of medicine, how can that, is it possible to be received vaccination when you're sick of malaria? - Yes, yes, currently the strategy we're going to implement is we will integrate both strategies of vaccination and also the case management, case diagnosis. So if you are sick of malaria, especially if it's not a severe malaria case, you can take the vaccine. This vaccine is for children eight from five months up to 18 months. So if these children are sick of malaria currently, and if it's not severe case of malaria, they can take the vaccine. But if it is severe case of malaria, where we have a high fever and other complications, we may also postpone the vaccination so that they can take it later. But when it comes to the treatment component, we're miserable and partners are trying to also avail medicine for malaria in all health facilities. And this has been also picked. And currently there are distributions to fill these gaps. - Okay, so how will the rollout of this vaccine help in reducing the impact of malaria in the country? - This malaria vaccine rollout significantly reduced, especially the burden of disease among children, researchers from other countries. So it will reduce at least by half of the cases in malaria, especially in these children, 105 children, and also reduce mortality. That means the severity will be reduced and that will also impact the mortality of the child. So it will significantly reduce the number of cases by half and also the inpatient, and also the mortality related with malaria. - Right, so is it a single dosage? - No, currently South Sudan introduced four dose of malaria vaccine. It will be given at five months, six months, seven months, and 18 months. So it will take four shots to be covered. Sure, sure, you have to take four shots for you to fully be protected from this and the efficacy or the effectiveness of the vaccine is around 75%. So that doesn't mean if you take the vaccine, you are fully protected from the disease, but it means like it will protect you up to 75%. So children who are vaccinated may still have the disease or may still-- - But not as severe as when you're not. - Of course, of course, and it will also reduce the mortality for days from malaria. - Right, so looking at the timeframe, how long can this vaccine protect you? - For now, the different researches or the pilot studies shows this will protect children under five, up to under five age, but still we will see more studies are done, more clinical trials are done. We will see for how long it will protect, but for now, the data from different countries shows it will protect children under five and it may also go beyond, but still we need to see the data from other countries' experience. - Right, so the rollout was launched yesterday, so have the vaccine started being moved? - Sure, for now, we're going to roll out the vaccine in 28 counties in six states. So these counties are selected based on the disease burden and also in prevalence of days related with malaria, so there's a WHO framework for conducting this analysis and these are hybrid countries who are selected, which are selected, so for now, we will roll out the vaccine in these counties and currently in most of the counties, different preparatory activities are done and the vaccine rollout will begin, hopefully starting from this week. - Right, so which are these six states? - These are the Baragadals, the Northern Baragadal, Western Baragadal, Warap, Eastern Equatoria, Central Equatoria and from the jungler state, it's only four counties, so these are the six states. - Right, thank you so much for coming here, Michael, to bring us a speed. So what are some of the key areas where UNICEF is contributing in this rollout program? - Currently, as UNICEF, we are supporting the rollout, especially when it comes to the logistic component of the rollout, including the vaccine procurement distribution in the country and also on the demand creation side, also especially related with the community awareness activities, social mobilization activities, engaging the community to create more awareness. So we are working on these two components, the logistic component and the demand creation component to create more demand and create awareness. - Right, so how does this development fit into efforts to strengthen the healthcare system in the country? - As you all know, on July 1st, we also, UNICEF also launched his health sector transformation plan, HSTP, and this also strengthened the primary healthcare unit and this immunization vaccination program is part of this big project. We're going to, we launched July 1st and it will help us to penetrate the primary healthcare service through immunization and also creating more awareness for the community to demand routine immunization activity beside the malaria vaccine. So this part of the HSTP and immunization is have the large share in the projects of that means it will contribute toward the health sector strengthening. - Right, so what message do you convey to parents or caregivers about the importance of vaccination and other preventative measures against malaria? - My message is, as you all know, malaria is causing deaths in this country, especially in under five children. Every how a child is dying in South Sudan because of malaria. And every day we have around 20 days is related with malaria and under five children have a big share in this number. So for me, vaccinating your child aged between five months and 18 months will help to reduce the disease and also help to reduce the deaths associated with malaria. So my advice is to bring the child for this very effective safe vaccine and also to finish all the four doses in the schedule and not to drop out because dropping out also causes less effectiveness for the vaccine. So this is my advice to complete all the doses and bring your child to help the facility to get the vaccine. - And finally, what are your hopes for the future of public health care in the country? - I hope to see a South Sudanese children, women, pregnant mothers get a very safe service, self-care service where they can also retrieve and do all their best by ensuring the safety of the community, yes. - All right, Michael and Mrs. Finn, thank you so much for your time.