TAMAR KAHN
Business Day
03/25/2010
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi yesterday appealed to MPs to support the government’s vaccination campaigns, warning them not to stir up anxiety by propagating unsubstantiated claims of dangers associated with the shots.
The department will run a national measles and polio vaccination campaign between April 12 and 23, and a two-month H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign from April 5.
The minister said he had been alarmed by ill-informed questions in Parliament by an MP from the African Christian Democratic Party about dangerous side-effects of a supposed “tamiflu vaccine”, based on information the member had apparently read on the internet. In fact, there is no tamiflu vaccine: tamiflu is a drug used to treat influenza.
The UK and Nigeria had both run into major problems with vaccination campaigns due to unfounded claims about side-effects, he said. The UK had seen its vaccination rate for measles fall by 15% due to claims that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine raised the risk of autism, while Nigeria had seen its polio vaccination campaign founder for similar reasons, he said.
Politicians wielded great influence among the public and should watch what they said, he said.
“The word ‘side-effects’ nearly destroyed this country,” he said, referring to former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang ‘s overemphasis of the side-effects of AIDS drugs, which deterred many patients from seeking treatment that could have saved their lives.
Motsoaledi made his remarks as he presented his department’s strategic plan to Parliament’s health portfolio committee. The plan includes ambitious targets for combating HIV and tuberculosis, increasing life expectancy, and decreasing child and maternal mortality.
These five-year goals were agreed to with the Presidency and include reducing the mother-to-child transmission rate of HIV from 10% to less than 5% and increasing the tuberculosis cure rate from 64% to 85%.
New HIV and tuberculosis policies aimed at these goals include providing treatment to more HIV patients, and a massive HIV testing campaign spearheaded by President Jacob Zuma that starts on April 15.
The health department also aimed to reduce the maternal mortality rate from between 400 and 625 per 100000 live births to 100 per 100000 live births.
“We know this is a mountain, but no woman ought to die in childbirth,” Motsoaledi told MPs.