| Abstract: | In the late 1960s, health workers from a mission hospital in rural Zambia began registering children under 14 years old within 30 miles of the hospital (about 3000 children) by incorporating the cooperation of community leaders. They wanted to give every 0-4 year old child a Road to Health card and every 5-14 year old a vaccine record card and to promote the significance of immunization to parents and community leaders. The mission hospital established mobile health units to conduct regular visits in the center of villages. Staff hugh scales from a tree and borrowed a table to conduct the clinic. They kept a good relationship and communication with the community, leading successful education and communication activities. By 1988, many younger mothers were unfamiliar with a measles or whooping cough epidemic so they tended to not have their infants immunized. Epidemics began killing children nationwide, frightening these mothers so they brought their children for immunizations. The medical mission achieved an 85-90% vaccination coverage rate with immunization clinic attendance climbing quickly. 1 mother even walked 30 miles to have her infant injected with the DPT vaccine, but 10 years earlier, she did not bring her children. Further, measles had not reached her area because the immunization level was so high that it stopped the epidemic. |
