Health Minister: All will be immunised

HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh says citizens and all foreign migrants will be immunised against communicable diseases such as measles.

He gave the assurance during a news conference at the ministry's office on Park Street in Port of Spain, to announce that TT will be hosting the 64th Annual Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) Conference from June 20 to 22. Deyalsingh said the influx of Venezuelan migrants into TT would not affect the ability of citizens to be immunised against measles.

"We have been dealing with this since last year and the year before. The resources are there."

He said the best way to fight measles "is to get your local population immunised." When that happens, Deyalsingh said, "If you have a threat of an imported case, it does not spread to your local population."

He reiterated that Venezuelan migrants would receive free health care for communicable diseases. "We are doing that right now as we speak." Deyalsingh explained the cost to treat diseases like malaria and measles was not expensive.

He said the need to increase TT's vaccination rates for measles as close to 100 per cent as possible was underscored by a letter from Pan American Health Organisation Director Dr Carissa Etienne to the Prime Minister. Deyalsingh said Etienne indicated to Dr Rowley that the global incidence of measles had increased by 300 per cent this year and all six regions of the World Health Organisation (WHO) had been affected.

Deyalsingh said 100,000 cases had been reported in 47 of the 53 countries in Europe. While the Americas were declared measles free in 2016, Deyalsingh said as of May 4, there had been 1,141 confirmed measles cases in 13 countries in the region.

Locally, Deyalsingh said the ministry had been striving to achieve the WHO's 95 per cent immunisation target for measles. He said the percentages for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccinations were unsatisfactory from 2012 to 2016. MMR vaccines are administered one year apart. MMR one vaccine percentages from 2012 to 2016 were 85, 91, 98, 89 and 86 per cent respectively. MMR two vaccines for the same period were 78, 87, 88, 79 and 75 per cent.

Deyalsingh said MMR one vaccine percentages in 2017 and 2018 were 93 and 90 per cent respectively. MMR two percentages for 2017 and 2018 were 90 and 92 per cent. Noting that those figures were from the public health sector, Deyalsingh was certain that measles vaccinations at private health institutions had moved the total immunisation figure closer to 95 per cent.

Saying the MMR vaccine was not 100 per cent effective, Deyalsingh said, "So even if we vaccinated everybody. There would be one or two percent of those children who will not get immunity." He said that was why the immunisation figures needed to be up in the mid- 90 per cent range. He also said the CARPHA conference would look at people's attitudes towards vaccinations and "why we are becoming a vaccine-hesitant society."