KATHMANDU: The Family Welfare Division under the Department of Health Services has resumed its much-anticipated National Measles Rubella (MR) Campaign inside Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).

Ncell Private Limited in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) and UNICEF, has been supporting the government for this national campaign to immunize children across the country between the age of 9 months to 5 years.

The mass immunization campaign that started in mid-February 2020 was earlier postponed due to the COVID-19 and it resumed inside KMC on June 25, adopting safety measures amid risk of potential spread of the coronavirus. Through this campaign in KMC, the government has targeted to immunize over 100,000 children between the ages of 9 months to 5 years with the MR vaccine inside the metropolitan city.

Government’s statistics indicate that cases of MR outbreak are increasing at an alarming rate post 2015. Measles outbreaks have been reported in various districts including in Kathmandu amid the coronavirus pandemic. As of mid-May 2020, more than 325 measles cases have been confirmed. There were 431 confirmed cases of measles in 2019.

In KMC, the MR campaign is being carried out in three phases covering all 32 wards. Under the first phase, children of Ward 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 31 and 32 were immunized during June 25-27. In the second phase, which started on June 28 and continues till June 30, children of Ward 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 11, 12, 13, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 are being vaccinated. This campaign will be carried out in Ward 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 in the third phase starting July 1 to 3.

Ncell as a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MoHP and National Health Education and Communication Centre (NHEICC) in 2019 as an exclusive awareness partner for supporting the government to raise health awareness across the country. In line with this, Ncell has been supporting the government from the forefront for driving the national immunization campaign with technical support from UNICEF and Partner organizations that started from mid- February 2020 and was halted due to COVID- 19 pandemic.

This collaboration of Ncell with the government for this noble cause will contribute towards supporting the government to reduce number of death and disability in children and meet World Health Organization (WHO) goal of eliminating MR by 2023. The company has also been supporting the government is COVID-19 awareness and prevention. Previously in October 2019, Ncell in collaboration with the MoHP had supported the government in broadcasting Dengue awareness messaging across the country via multiple channels of communication