Pediatrics and Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Biography

Biography: Salah Thabit Al Awaidy

Abstract

Oman has committed to the goal of eliminating measles, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) by 2015 year. Elimination is defi ned as the absence of endemic measles and rubella transmission in a defi ned geographical area (e.g. region or country) for ≥12 months in the presence of a well-performing surveillance system and for rubella without the occurrence of Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) cases associated with endemic transmission in the presence of high-quality surveillance system. Strategies to reach this goal included: a) vaccination supplemental activities with the goal of achieving high rates of vaccination coverage; and maintenance of coverage in order to increase population-wide and maintaining high vaccination coverage to increase population-wide immunity; b) syndromic surveillance programs to monitor fever and rash illness syndromes for eff ective detection of cases and serological surveillance; c) integrating these strategies into measles surveillance system; and) high-quality surveillance system, and sensitive for CRS. Measles and rubella was a leading cause of infant and child morbidity and mortality in Oman before the introduction of measles vaccine by 1975 and thereaft er until 1994. With the introduction of a second dose of measles and fi rst rubella vaccines (measles- rubella) in 1994, coverage for fi rst and second doses of measles and rubella vaccines increased more than 95% in 1996 and has been sustained at a level greater than >95% since then. A national measles and rubella (MR) immunization catch-up campaign targeting children ages 15 months to 18 years was conducted in 1994 that achieved 94% coverage. As a result, the incidence of measles and rubella have declined markedly in recent years, to ≤1 case per million persons in 2012 and to zero cases for measles and rubella in 2013 and onward. Similarly, no case of CRS has been notifi ed since 2007. Oman has made signifi cant progress toward measles and rubella elimination and has met the regional elimination goals. However, new challenges faced by Oman, for instance with increased globalization, has led to issues such as outbreaks from imported cases. Additional challenges still remain with regard to increasing identification and immunization of unvaccinated non-Omani workers and their families.