Luanda -- The 11th Meeting of the Task Force on Immunization (TFI) and the 10th Meeting of the African Regional Inter-Agency coordinating Committee (ARICC) whose thrust is to review recommendations made last year and make projections for the coming year opened Tuesday, in Luanda, Angola.

Speaking at the official opening of the meeting, Director, Programme Management in the WHO Regional office for Africa (AFRO), Dr Luis Gomes Sambo urged African countries to allocate more resources in their annual budgets for health services including immunization for better routine coverage. He lamented the lack of commitment by WHO member states in Africa towards achieving and sustaining EPI goals and targets for child survival.

"Health care is not cheap, but the alternative - high mortality and morbidity are no less costly," Dr Sambo said in his call to African leaders to invest in the future of their countries.

Dr Sambo also highlighted the milestones made in the implementation of the 30 programme recommendations made at the last TFI meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. The recommendations focused on strengthening and optimizing the delivery of sustainable quality immunization services, activities for the accelerated reduction of vaccine preventable diseases and the sustainable introduction of new vaccines and technologies into national immunization programmes.

He said gains had been made in Routine Immunisation coverage particularly in the 15 countries that had introduced the Reach Every District (RED) approach. This approach was noted as an effective intervention for better supportive supervision, programme management and the use of real time data to drive the programme.

While the region is now battling with the transmission of wild poliovirus in West Africa, the transmission has been limited to two endemic countries, namely Nigeria and Niger with importations into four countries in West and Central African countries. The region has had to channel available resources for the polio eradication initiative to the highest priority countries that are the proven reservoirs for polio transmission.

Dr Sambo urged the participants to forge ahead and find practical solutions to the last hurdle of eradicating polio since the major battles against the crippling disease had been won.

"It is abundantly clear however that if we are to succeed in eradicating polio, adequate resources and political commitment must be sustained to interrupt transmission in the remaining reservoirs and to maintain population immunity," Dr Sambo said.

In his address Dr Sambo highlighted achievements in supplemental measles immunization activities which provided an opportunity for other interventions such as deworming, anti-malaria activities and Vitamin A Supplementation in two countries. The other successes were in Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination in 14 of the 46 countries in the region, 18 out of the 30 countries at risk of Yellow Fever incorporated the yellow fever vaccine into routine immunization .

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