Public Complain of Malaria Vaccine Shortage

The general public has raised concern and doubt over malaria vaccines, which they said are running short in health centres.

In an interview in health centres, members of the public expressed 'strong interest', calling for 'immediate' explanation from the health department over what they saw as the acute shortage of chloroquine vaccines at a time when malaria is taking a high toll on the population.

Some people complained that they are always in a desperate situation when the health centre they rely on asks them to buy malaria vaccines.

'We do not understand why the health centres don't have sufficient malaria vaccines' one of them noted.

They claimed that usually disputes broke out between patients and nurses over what some saw as the 'negligible' attention given to the sick.

However several health personnel highlighted the government's ratification and signing of the Roll Black Malaria Chater, should have prevented the shortage. In the wake of the ratification the personnel said they are at a loss - unable to understand why there is a shortage of malaria vaccines in health centres. 'The government should be very careful with malaria and should provide adequate vaccines in all the health centres, otherwise it can cause a serious setback for the development of this country,' they warned.

Meanwhile when contacted, the Secretary of State for Health Abdoulie Sallah neither denied nor confirmed the malaria vaccine shortage. He asserted that the incident was once noted at Sukuta health centre whereby a woman was told to buy the vaccine from a particular individual. He admitted that this could have happened in certain health centre because of the high demand for the malaria vaccines at this time of the year.

SoS Sallah however, cited that his department would do all it can to provide adequate vaccines to all health centres countrywide to avoid vaccine shortage in the future.