The Ministry of Health is on track to meet its goal of immunising more than half a million children against measles this month as the nationwide drive reached a remote village in Takeo province yesterday, health officials said yesterday.

Pieter van Maaren, the World Health Organisation’s representative in Cambodia, said he was “encouraged by the [ministry’s] efforts to reach hard to reach communities, and the potential this work has for further delivery of health services to these communities”.  

He was speaking at Trapaing village in Takeo province’s Tramkak district, where Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly and Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng joined the immunisation drive yesterday. The village was one of more than 2,000 identified as being at high risk for measles outbreaks.

These villages are the focus of the immunisation campaign being conducted this month “to avert the risk of large local measles outbreaks and potentially a nationwide outbreak”, a statement from the WHO said.

Children in the village between 5 and 9 years old were immunised against measles, while children under 5 were immunised against polio, a statement from the WHO said. They were also provided with Vitamin A and de-worming tablets.

The immunisation effort targets communities that have the lowest immunisation coverage, especially those in remote villages, the urban poor and migrant populations.