Infectious Disease Risk and Vaccination in Northern Syria after 5 Years of Civil War: The MSF Experience

Conclusions
Access to EPI vaccination for children is a key example of preventative public health interventions that have been curtailed in Northern Syria since the start of the conflict.
These findings demonstrate that collapse of the formal public health system has led to an increasingly large group of children who are susceptible to infectious diseases with serious consequences, with younger children most vulnerable.
We call on all health actors and the international community to work towards re-establishment of EPI activities as a priority to ensure that children who have had no access to vaccination in the last five years are adequately protected for VPDs as soon as possible.
Data Sharing
Data are available on request in accordance with MSF’s data sharing policy due to the sensitivity of the data. Requests for access to data should be made to [e-mail]. For more information please see:
MSF’s Data Sharing Policy: http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/handle/10144/306501
Funding
Médecins Sans Frontières – Operational Centre Amsterdam (MSF-OCA) funded the humanitarian response activity described in this manuscript. MSF-OCA had no role in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The authors received no specific funding for this work.
Corresponding Author
Alan de Lima Pereira: [e-mail]
Competing Interests
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - February 2, 2018 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Alan de Lima Pereira Source Type: research