Ouch!

Last week we were paid a visit by the Local health team who are sent out by the government to immunise all children in their allocated village. The government, each time there is an outbreak of a preventable disease such as measles or polio, deploy teams nationally to administer immunisations on a mass scale. Recently, there have been reports of measles spreading through the community and sadly claiming too many lives especially of those under 5 years old. We have had some mild cases of measles here at GSF and in the school.

All of our children here at GSF are fully immunised and have had all of their routine vaccines however this does not make you exempt from getting another injection in your arm! The local heath team are sent to vaccinate all under 5's that they find despite previous immunisation history. Sadly, families in the villages are not so good at ensuring their children are fully immunised (despite it being a free service) which is why the teams are sent out to each home ensuring that the youngest children are given some protection against these deadly but very preventable diseases.

The National newspaper reported that there was a very good response to the week's 3 day booster immunisation programme and that there had been more than 90% uptake of the immunisations.