VACCINATION COVERAGE OVER 120 PERCENT !?

AIM Pristina, 28 May, 1997

World Health Organization (WHO), is the leader of the Project "World without Polio by the Year 2000" which envisages immunisation of Kosovo children against this fatal disease which causes serious disability.

September 27, 28 and 29 last year were proclaimed "National Immunisation Days" when the first round of vaccination started, while the second round commenced on November 8, 9 and 10 that same year.

The highest local state officials came to Belgrade with this important initiative aimed at protecting children in Kosovo, naturally with certain preconditions: to be supplied with vaccines, work methodology, to be in charge of the Project and supervision of its implementation.

The Albanian social and political factors were asked to support the realisation of this Project by taking part in raising the awareness of the population and advertising the Project. This was an extremely important task to be carried out which required a high level of commitment in the name of humanism and to the benefit of the health of Kosovo children. In any case, without their engagement hardly any results could be expected.

This action was preceded by a verbal agreement between Government representatives appointed by Belgrade, and those from Kosovo to form one-national medical teams for regions inhabited by citizens of one nationality in order to carry out this responsible task as successfully as possible. However, the agreement was only partially honoured, i.e. only in regions without non-Albanian medical staff. This same agreement also stipulated calls for vaccination of the Albanian children to be printed in the Albanian language. However, this yet another "omission". This is best illustrated by the fact that, e.g. one of the two children of the same parents got a call in the Albanian language while the other child received an invitation printed in the Serbian language - in Cyrillic script. This caused much confusion and mistrust among parents, while cynics commented that this was aimed at "preserving the 50 percent to 50 percent parity". What was not agreed upon, and could therefore hardly be criticized, is that no sanctions were envisaged between the Albanian and the Serbian side for those who failed to apply the previously agreed principles.

However, irrespective of all mutual disagreements and verbal reproaches for a lack of seriousness in the implementation of this important action, one fact should not be overlooked - i.e. that immunised children will be protected against a disease with grave consequences.

And which children will be protected? The general campaign of emergency immunisation covered only children registered by corresponding services in charge of immunisation and whose number also represented the official plan, as well as those children included in the supplementary lists which humanitarian and voluntary association "Mother Theresa" helped prepare with its field work. However, this doesn't mean that there were no omissions. It could be said that they did not precisely occur due to negligent and irresponsible work of registrars, but because of parents themselves who in fear did not even register their children. A typical example of this is the village of Alvalija, near Pristina, with 487 officially registered children, while the register specially prepared for this campaign by the activists of "Mother Theresa" had 410 children from 0 to five years old. However, during this three-day action over 600 children were vaccinated in this same village. God only knows what is the actual number of children in this village. And God knows how many such "Alvalijas" are there in Kosovo.

After successfully completed immunisation in the first campaign which was carried out in two rounds with the 120 percent achieved coverage (which amazed the world), the above mentioned centres agreed to organize the second immunisation campaign for children between 0 and 5 years of age, again in two rounds: on April 11, 12 and 13 and May 23, 24 and 25. The success of the work done in the first two vaccination rounds is mostly attributed to good organization of the Institute for Health Care as it was better equipped than parallel Albanian health institutions.

Since sometimes the same names appeared during vaccination, i.e. of children who had already received their dose, panic spread among parents of such children as a result of their insufficient information and ignorance. The professors of the Faculty of Medicine and epidemiologists reacted in their way and addressed the public with the statement that "the vaccine was not harmful even for those who had been regularly inoculated". Perhaps this is the source of some of the incredible percentages of the success of vaccination in Kosovo (over 100 percent).

On the other hand, due to the lack of primarily electronic media before the beginning of this world action only citizens of the Albanian nationality with satellite dishes were able to follow this campaign on satellite TV so that representatives of the Albanian Ministry of Health of Kosovo and of the Independent Medical Association of Kosovo remained in the dark. They received timely and detailed information mostly through the daily "Bujku". There is no need to mention their inertia when it comes to specific projects which are necessary precisely because of such a state of the Kosovo health system. Up till now they never addressed the World Health Organization and UNICEF with their problems, but reacted when institutions of the health system of Serbia were given field equipment. Whether they like it or not, it turned out that "those in Belgrade knew better how and to what extent should the Albanian children in Kosovo be protected" (!?)

It was the second round of vaccination that caught the competent people (in the Albanian circles) napping so that representatives of the World Health Organization did not take much heed of their requests and suggestions. It thus happened that the only specialist of epidemiology employed in the Health Centre of Pristina (of the Albanian nationality), was engaged in the field just like other doctors (general practitioners). How poorly was this second immunisation round completed is best proven by the fact that lists of unregistered children were not supplemented at all.

In other words, the emergency vaccination campaign covered only children from 0 to 5 years of age. School children were vaccinated only after an epidemics of poliomyelitis was proclaimed. This raises quite a logical question: where are other children between 5 and 7 years of age, those born between 1989 and 1991 when the health system was destroyed and this period marked the lowest registered rate of vaccination after the Second World War? Was immunisation carried out in order to really do something or just that it could be said that something was done?

It is interesting that in the last two to three months, after the break out of an epidemics of polio was proclaimed, "only" 19 cases were registered, which is slightly above the total number of cases registered in the previous five years. Perhaps the specification "only" was the reason why it was not sounded with much alarm as was the epidemics of the "foot and mouth disease" (cattle disease). The common denominator of these two epidemics is that, according to the representatives of the health system of Serbia, both "have come from the border zones with Albania".

But, let's go back to immunisation and vaccines. The administration of the vaccine is easy. Two drops straight into the mouth. Medically speaking, this is live vaccine of the three-type and stabilized poliovirus Sabine. It was produced in the Institute for Immunology and Virology "Torlak" in Belgrade in the series S-330/3 the quality of which was verified by the World Health Organization. On the other hand, during work on the ground health workers have observed that when vaccine was administrated with a white dropper, there were 20 doses in each vial, but when administered with green droppers one vial contained 29 doses. In this way 45 percent of the vaccine envisaged for this campaign was saved but it is still not clear at whose expense. Children's !?

...Yet, this information neither alarmed parties to the Agreement...!?

AIM Pristina Ram JANI