The covid-19 pandemic and operational costs among other things delayed the conducting of the national immunisation coverage survey.
The last survey was conducted in 2013 by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.
Head of family health Dr Rachel Devi said the national immunisation coverage survey training would equip participants with the necessary skills to gather vital data.
The Ministry of Health and Medical Services chief medical advisor Doctor Luisa Cikamatana officiated at the opening of the training yesterday at the Fiji National University’s School of Public Health in Tamavua.
She said empirical data collected from the survey would assist the ministry in implementing a targeted approach and devising specific solutions
The survey is expected to be carried out in September for six weeks in various divisions.
Doctor Devi said immunisation of children ultimately prevented thousands of illnesses year in and year out and lowered the child mortality rate.
“I think a lot of things have happened in between and even COVID was one of them but it definitely was due, so we needed to get that done, these surveys are not cheap to do and funding is one of the big things that goes into this as well so that’s the ministry did secure some funding, it’s DFAT funded now,” she said.
“There was a time when we used to see a lot of diarrheal causes, pneumonia causes of death in Fiji but when we introduced vaccines, we literally show a decline or almost zero deaths because of the vaccination program and when we administer vaccines and everything’s done right, we anticipate deaths to go down and we’ve seen that in Fiji as well.”
She said the targeted immunisation rates must always be above 95 per cent.
“If it’s below 95 per cent we need to know why, we know that vaccines work, it’s done a lot of wonders, with children we’ve seen and decades, we’ve seen the reduction. So that’s why it’s become so essential and our nurses religiously go out, if there’s some default because of any unforeseen reason by parents, we make sure we go out to them rather than them coming to us,” she said.
“We’ve seen a reduction in diarrheal diseases, pneumonia, measles, all the antigens that we use for vaccines and we want to continue to strengthen that coverage and maintain it.”