National immunisation coverage survey kicks off

Muscat: The national immunisation coverage survey kicked off on Monday in all governorates of the Sultanate of Oman.

The survey is implemented by the Ministry of Health (MoH), represented by the Directorate General for Disease Surveillance and Control and runs until 19 March.

The national survey targets children less than (5) years and mothers with children less than (5) years.

The national immunisation coverage survey took off from Sayyida Fatima bint Ali Mosque in Al Hail, the Wilayat of Al Seeb, with the presence of Dr. Thamra Said Al Ghafri, Director General of Health Services of Muscat Governorate along with Bader Saif Al Rawahi, Director of Communicable Diseases Control and a number of MOH officials.

Dr. Lamia Hussein Al Balushi, Director of Diseases Surveillance and Control, pointed out that the survey aims to measure the morbidity burden resulting from diseases included in the vaccines and identify the reasons for the delay in taking or refraining from vaccines.

The national survey aims to guide executive policies by presenting best practices, highlighting challenges that require interactive intervention to improve the performance of the national immunisation programme, and identifying the reasons for the delay in taking or refraining from vaccines.

The survey’s target is to visit 5,289 houses to obtain immunisation data for 16,470 of the target groups, the category of children from one year and a half to five years of age, in order to verify the immunizations data in different age stages according to the national immunisation schedule, and the category of mothers who have children under the age of 5 years (to verify if they have vaccinated during pregnancy).

The field survey teams, which will introduce themselves and the purpose of the visit, and survey, will visit the randomly selected houses in the various wilayats of the Sultanate of Oman. The team will first ask whether there are target groups in the house; if any, verbal consent to start the survey will be obtained. The immunisation data of the target groups will be obtained directly from mothers or the child’s caregiver. The survey team will use an electronic or paper questionnaire form prepared in advance by the team to collect the required data.

No vaccines, medicines, or taking samples will be performed during the survey.