Measles elimination in South Africa : policy and implementation

Abstract

With the advent of an effective and safe vaccine against measles, the control of measles has been astounding. In several countries the success of immunisation have led to the attempt to eliminate measles transmission entirely, through the use of vaccination strategies originally developed in the polio eradication programme. These strategies are to increase and maintain high routine coverage, to conduct periodic supplemental mass immunisation campaigns and case based, laboratory confirmed surveillance. In South Africa, measles mass vaccination was added to the existing polio mass vaccination campaigns in 1996 and 1997, and the combined strategies were formulated for the South African context in this document. This document is targeted at decision makers in the national and provincial Departments of Health, to enable a coordinated and effective South African measles elimination programme.