Masresha Balcha, Luce Richard, Tanifum Patricia, Lebo Emmaculate, Dosseh Annick, Mihigo Richard
WHO Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Congo.
WHO, Inter-country team for Western Africa, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Pan Afr Med J. 2020 Jan 2;35(Suppl 1):1. doi: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2020.35.1.19061. eCollection 2020.
Substantial progress has been achieved in the last two decades with the implementation of measles control strategies in the African Region. Elimination of measles is defined as the absence of endemic transmission in a defined geographical region or country for at least 12 months, as documented by a well-performing surveillance system. The framework for documenting elimination outlines five lines of evidence that should be utilized in documenting and assessing progress towards measles elimination. In March 2017, the WHO regional office for Africa developed and disseminated regional guidelines for the verification of measles elimination. As of May 2019, fourteen countries in the African Region have established national verification committees and 8 of these have begun to document progress toward measles elimination. Inadequate awareness, concerns about multiple technical committees for immunization work, inadequate funding and human resources, as well as gaps in data quality and in the implementation of measles elimination strategies have been challenges that hindered the establishment and documentation of progress by national verification committees. We recommend continuous capacity building and advocacy, technical assistance and networking to improve the work around the documentation of country progress towards measles elimination in the African Region.
在过去二十年里，非洲区域实施麻疹控制策略取得了重大进展。麻疹消除定义为在一个特定地理区域或国家内，通过运行良好的监测系统记录，至少12个月无地方性传播。记录消除情况的框架概述了五条证据线，应利用这些证据来记录和评估在实现麻疹消除方面的进展。2017年3月，世卫组织非洲区域办事处制定并发布了麻疹消除验证区域指南。截至2019年5月，非洲区域有14个国家成立了国家验证委员会，其中8个已开始记录在实现麻疹消除方面的进展。认识不足、对免疫工作多个技术委员会的担忧、资金和人力资源不足，以及数据质量和麻疹消除策略实施方面的差距，都是阻碍国家验证委员会记录进展情况的挑战。我们建议持续开展能力建设和宣传、技术援助及建立网络，以改进非洲区域各国在记录麻疹消除进展方面的工作。
