Rotary Club of Santo representative AG Rufino Pineda
and Joseph Mape from Rural Health Department witnessed on October 8, 2013 the
start of a mass vaccination campaign at Stone Hill in the interior of the
island of Espiritu Santo.
For the last three years, no vaccinations were
conducted in this area because the fridge of the nearby Fanafo Health Clinic
had terminated its working life. Difficulties for medical staff from Luganville
to access these remote terrains had compelled Rural Health staff to conduct
mass vaccinations over a long period as vaccines couldn’t be preserved in the
nearby Health Clinic.
With a new fridge generously donated by the Santo
Rotary Club, a nine-day mass vaccination campaign was organized to immunise the
young population scattered around the interior bush.
Willie Tangis is the Nurse Practitioner leading the
vaccination campaign that started at Willie Rau Nakamal as the local Aid Post
was not yet operational.
This campaign began with six-month old Suzan, who
received her pentavalent vaccines by intra muscular injection, including
Diphtheria, Hepatitis B, Tetanus, Whooping Cough, and Petausis, along with oral
Polio vaccine. Hundreds of young children were then immunized.
A few weeks earlier, a young boy from Fanafo was
hospitalized in a critical condition at the Northern Hospital in
Luganville. Fortunately acute treatment saved him after he was diagnosed
having Tetanus from a nasty cut. It is hoped that such things won’t happen
again when the whole community of this area benefit from the vaccination
campaign.
Picture:
Nurse Practitioner Willie Tangis injecting pentavalent Vaccine at 6 months baby
Suzan, far left AG Rufino Pineda, far right former Head of Health Joseph Mape.
