An evaluation of the 2012 measles mass vaccination campaign in Guinea

INTRODUCTION: To estimate the post-campaign level of measles vaccination coverage in Guinea. METHODS: Interview of parents and observation of measles vaccination cards of children aged 9 to 59 months during the mass measles campaign. A nationwide cluster randomized sample under health District stratification. RESULTS: 64.2% (95%CI = 60.9% to 67.4%) of children were vaccinated and had their measles vaccination card. With respect to card and history 90.5% (95%CI = 88.3% to 92.3%) were vaccinated. The estimation was found to be between 72.7% and 81.9%. Coverage with card increased from 55.5% to 79.30% with the level of education of parents but that was not statistically significant, (X(2)(trend) =3.087 P= 0.07). However coverage with card significantly increased with profession from 55.1% for farmers followed by 59.2% for other manual workers to 73.8% for sellers, ending by 74.5% for settled technicians (X(2) (trend) =12.16 P= 0.0005). For unvaccinated children, lack of information accounted for the main reason (37.03%) followed by parents’ occupation (23.45%), parents’ sickness (8.6%), children's sickness (4.9%) and others including vaccinators absent in the post or parents’ belief that it was a door to door campaign. CONCLUSION: The mass measles vaccination campaign achieved an approximate coverage of 75%. Although not enough for effective control of measles, it has covered an important gap left over by the routine immunization coverage 42%. Appropriate measures are needed to improve coverage in routine immunization and specific actions should be taken to target farmers and other manual workers’ families but also uneducated groups for both routine immunization and mass campaigns.