EDITORIAL : THE CITIZEN, TANZANIA

Stars mass immunization against measles now   

Why has measles broken out and little is being done to contain it?  Why is the ministry of Health and Social Welfare dragging its feet on launching a mass immunisation campaign against it?

The fact that no fewer than 1,573 measles cases have been reported in six Mainland regions since early this year is frightening.

The ministry acknowledges that Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Coast, Morogoro and Tanga have high measles cases and 18 people have died of the disease.

Although the government says the country’s measles vaccination rate is 85 per cent, there is still a cause for alarm.
The ministry plans to launch an immunisation drive for children aged between nine months and 15 years in October.
The director of Prevention Services, Dr Donan Mmbando, says the outbreak usually occurs between September and December every year, but it was not noticed last year.

He believes that the current outbreak could be part of what was supposed to happen last year.
If that is the trend, the ministry should have been well prepared to deal with the problem instead of being caught off guard.

We do not know why when the disease broke out in January and the ministry withheld the crucial information for the public until last week, when the situation worsened. It should have embarked on multi-faceted approaches involving various stakeholders to ensure that the immunisation drive is stepped up.

We wonder why should the ministry wait till October to vaccinate children aged nine months and 15 years when the disease is in our midst.

Measles is a viral disease spread through respiration and patients may become blind or lose their lives within days unless they are treated. That being the case the ministry was supposed to act immediately and correctly.

We also call on the ministry to investigate whether the vaccine handling, storage and distribution are done appropriately. Vaccines are weakened pathogens and any poor handling can be disastrous.

Conserve Environment   

Tanzania is contending with an alarming rate of environmental destruction despite attempts to reverse it. Forests are massively being destroyed in search of building materials, wood fuel and clearing land for agriculture.

In some areas, small-scale miners have been polluting water sources and destroying forests.

It is understood that 55 per cent of the land could be used for agriculture and over 51 per cent for grazing.
About six per cent of the agricultural land is cultivated with the practice of shifting cultivation, which causes deforestation and land degradation on the pastoral land.

Studies estimate that wood fuel and agricultural residues account for 92 per cent of the total energy consumption in the country.

As a result, the mismanagement of fuel resources significantly contributes to deforestation and environmental degradation.

The biodiversity is lost, soil degraded and water sources dried up. Floods or dry spells have been ravaging parts of our country, destroying infrastructure and farms.

By March, at least 1.3 million people were facing a food shortage and needed assistance.
Last week’s reports that some unlicensed people were harvesting trees in Kilimanjaro Region are therefore disappointing.

We call on individual Tanzanians and authorities to brook no further environmental destruction in Kilimanjaro and elsewhere.

Treatment and disposal of waste should be properly done in urban areas to reduce pollution to a large extent.