Ministry to start Tdap vaccination campaign

The Ministry of Public Health ( MoPH) has announced a nationwide immunisation programme for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (Tdap), starting from February 18.
Over three weeks, the campaign that runs until March 15, targets class 10 students from both government and private schools.
“Vaccines available in Qatar cover over 14 diseases,” Dr Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani, director of Public Health Department at MoPH said yesterday.
“The Qatari vaccine programme is at the same level of the programmes in the Western countries and is one of the unique updated and advanced immunisation programmes in the region,” he said.
Dr Sheikh Mohamed was speaking at the training session for healthcare practitioners engaged in providing vaccination for the school children.
Other senior MoPH officials including Dr Hamad Eid al-Rumaihi, director, Health Protection & Communicable Disease, and Dr Soha al-Bayat, head of the Vaccination Unit also spoke at the event.
“This is a booster grade for class 10 students as everyone in Qatar is vaccinated against these diseases at early childhood. We are doing this to boost the immunisation as some of them might lose some impact of the vaccination. We have been doing it since 2011. In Qatar we don’t have any cases of these diseases but a few cases were reported among people who came from outside,” Sheikh Mohamed said.
Dr al-Rumaihi said that Qatar is taking precautions to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. “We had two cases of diphtheria in 2016 and another two cases last year. However, all the cases were from people who visited the country from outside. But we treat these cases with seriousness and take all steps to make sure that Qatar is free from any such diseases,”  the official said.
Dr al-Bayat gave a presentation of how people can get prevent getting communicable diseases and the steps to be taken to protect themselves. The day-long training  programme also had a number of sessions provided by experts from the ministry as well as from other international organisations.