JAMAICA HAS recorded an 88 per cent rate among children who have received three doses of the immunisation diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DPT). The regional average is 86 per cent.In the UNICEF report titled Progress of the Nations 2000, Jamaica had the 10th highest percentage, falling in the category of countries like Canada, the United States and Peru.
DPT is a series of immunisations that can prevent diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus - diseases that kill 600,000 children and affect millions of others every year in developing countries.
To be fully protected, the Ministry of Health's immunisation schedule guides that immunisation for DPT should be given at six weeks, three months, five months, 18 months, and between three and six years old.
The UNICEF report states that immunisation saves the lives of over 2.5 million children per year. At the meeting of the World Summit for Children in 1990, a target goal of immunising 90 per cent of children in all countries by the end of 2000 was established. To date, 40 developing countries have exceeded the 90 per cent coverage goal.
Last month, at the Medical Association of Jamaica's annual symposium, Ministry of Health epidemiologist Dr. Karen Lewis-Bell said that Jamaica's immunisation coverage, calculated based on the target population, has been falling. She said that immunisation coverage had been falling for the past three years and that coverage was not good enough when the risk of spreading the disease to other children was so high.
