Yellow Fever is at our borders – Medex cautions

Apr 25, 2017 News

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– urges persons to be immunised as M&CC launches Vaccination Week

“Yellow Fever is at our borders, so we need to ensure that we are immunised,” warned Chief Health Visitor, Medex Berris Springer, when the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown [M&CC] launched Vaccination Week at the South Road, Georgetown, Dorothy Bailey Health Centre yesterday.

As she emphasised the need for persons to ensure that they are administered all vaccines, Springer urged persons who attended the launching ceremony not to wait until something is threatening before they seek after vaccines.
She recalled that the Municipality in an effort to ensure that persons were thoroughly vaccinated had conducted a vaccination campaign. “We went door to door with the Yellow Fever, the Tetanus, The MMR [Measles, Mumps and Rubella]…,” recalled Springer. She however noted that despite this effort “Yellow Fever is [currently] threatening and we are trying to pay attention to ensure that our borders are secured.”
Although an outbreak of Yellow Fever was reported in a number of African territories, Guyana’s neighbour to the south has also been combating the scourge. There is grave concern that the disease could easily migrate to Guyana.
According to the World Health Organisation [WHO], Yellow Fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The “yellow” in the name refers to the jaundice that affects some patients.
Symptoms of yellow fever include fever, headache, jaundice, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and fatigue.
A small proportion of patients who contract the virus, according to WHO, develop severe symptoms and approximately half of those die within seven to 10 days.
But WHO has noted that Yellow Fever is prevented by an extremely effective vaccine, which is safe and affordable. “A single dose of yellow fever vaccine is sufficient to confer sustained immunity and life-long protection against Yellow Fever disease and a booster dose of the vaccine is not needed,” WHO has assured.
Added to this WHO has made clear that “the vaccine provides effective immunity within 30 days for 99 percent of persons vaccinated.”
Springer disclosed yesterday that “as we speak other health workers, they are looking in the Regions – One, Two – at the borders to ensure that everybody is immunised and we are going to the low coverage areas to ensure that the babies, the entire family is immunised. So please spread the word that everybody should be vaccinated,” Springer urged.
Vaccination is important if there are to be healthy babies, healthy families and healthy communities which will by extension lend to a healthy country, Springer underscored.

According to Springer, the Georgetown Municipality is depending on the public to help its effort to spread the word about the importance of vaccination.
In order to gain the support, she disclosed that the municipality will this week seek to raise awareness in this regard. This will translate to open-door sessions, during the course of this week, at various municipal health centres including Festival City, and the Albouystown Centre which is presently being accommodated at the Dorothy Bailey Centre which is also known as the South Road Health Centre.
During the sessions, Springer said that “you can come in, tell your friends, your family, let them come too and ensure that they are fully immunised or vaccinated with all the vaccines. If you have a card feel free to come and we will discuss it with you…any queries, anything for clarity we are here.”
Currently there are 17 vaccines, some of which are combined, that are available to the under five age group. Moreover, by the time a child is five years old he or should have already benefited from these vaccines.
As part of the observation of Vaccination Week which will span the period April 22 – 28, 2017, the municipality will also host a health fair at City Hall on Thursday and Friday from 10:00 hours each day.
The fair, according to Springer, will allow persons to have access to immunisation services, dental and eyes screening services, Visual Inspection with Ascetic Acid [VIA] of the cervix, HIV tests and mental health and occupational health and safety awareness.
According to Springer, the notion of health is not merely looking at the body alone. “It is not only about being healthy because you have no cold, fever or flu…we are going to be looking at your environment because if you have a healthy environment, you obviously are likely to be healthy…if you are healthy and your environment is untidy obviously you can get sick,” said Springer as she noted that these are all aspects of health that will be given attention during the health fair.
“During this week we will even be guiding you even about what should be in your work places; for instance the type of chair you should sit on…it will be an entire package we will be offering for this entire week,” Springer said as she emphasized, “health is everybody’s business.”
The forum yesterday saw the attendance of several school students and entailed an interactive segment during which persons were given an opportunity to ask questions about vaccination.

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