The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) last week organized a media awareness workshop on a measles campaign to be carried out by South Sudan’s Ministry of Health with the support of UNCEF, WHO and other partners to conduct a measles follow-up across the country from 3 May to 11 May.

UNICEF said the campaign will aim to vaccinate children in the age group of 6-59 months, even if they were already vaccinated or had suffered measles before. In addition to the measles vaccination, children will also receive deworming tablets and vitamin A supplementation. 

Dr. Anthony Laku, EPI Manager at South Sudan’s Ministry of Health, said during the workshop that the previous campaign against measles in 2014 covered less than 50 per cent of its target areas in South Sudan because of poor security, rain and lack of infrastructure.

According to the World Health Organization, the measles cases in South Sudan have increased over the past 10 years despite the existence of campaigns against it.

The campaign targets 2,324,565 people by 14720 vaccinators of 3680 teams of 1230 team supervisors.