GUINEA / POLIO

A UNICEF immunization drive aims to stop polio in Guinea, a disease once thought eradicated in the country. UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:27
• Production Date: 26 March 2010
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: HEALTH SERVICES; DISEASE PREVENTION; DISEASE CONTROL; DISEASES; ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH; MEDICINE
• Geographic Subject: GUINEA
• MAMS Id: U100326b

Description

STORY: GUINEA / POLIO
TRT: 2.27
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: FRENCH / NATS

DATELINE: 4-9 MARCH 2010, CONAKRY, GUINEA

Shotlist

MARCH 2010, CONAKRY, BISSIKRIMA, GUINEA

1. Pan right, Soumah Naby, fisherman, walking in his neighborhood
2. Wide shot, small harbor with wooden fishing boats
3. Med shot, young men working on a wooden boat
4. Wide shot, Soumah Naby entering his house
5. Med shot, Soumah entering the room, with his five- year-old daughter Yeninka in his arms
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Soumah Naby, Fisherman:
“She use to walk normally, she would go with her older sister there and the neighbors to fetch water, she use to do everything, and out of the blue, the disease stroke us.”
7. Various shots, Yeninka, before she was infected with polio
8. Tilt up, Yeninka’s father changing moving his daughter’s legs
9. Pan right, Soumah’s house and surroundings
10. SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Ibrahima Founyuya Diallo, UNICEF’s Child Protection Expert:
“The poorest areas, the most destitute have sometimes difficulties to access vaccination services and parents have no access to information. They don’t have TV and have no information on routine vaccinations.”
11. Wide shot, Conakry streets
12. Wide shot, Soumah walking towards the harbor
13. SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Camille Tafsir Soumah, Vaccination Program National Coordinator:
“Because the country went through a period of insufficiencies and instability, the health system was not funded adequately. This led to insufficiencies in the routine immunization system. Health centers could not ensure the cold chain and lacked the petrol to organize advanced strategies that would have reached every child with immunization, especially in remote areas.”
14. Tilt down, Soumah and his daughter
15. Pan right, Conakry
16. Wide shot, cars on a road of Conakry
17. Wide shot, people in a market in Conakry
18. Med shot, women carrying bags on their heads
19. Pan right, banner reading, “National Days of Vaccination For Children from 0 to 59 months, Door to Door”

7 MARCH 2010, BISSIKRIMA, GUINEA

20. Tilt down, Bissikrima Health Centre
21. Wide shot, vaccinators gathered in the health centre
22. Med shot, vaccinators leaving the health center
23. Med shot, vaccinators walking towards a village, with vaccine box in the foreground
24. Med shot, children being vaccinated
25. Close up, children receiving vaccine
26. Med shot, vaccinator writing on the door of the house
27. Med shot, vaccinators arriving around houses to vaccine children
28. Med shot, children of the village
29. Med shot, vaccinator preparing the child for
30. Close up, young boy

Storyline

Soumah Naby, a widower and fisherman by trade lives in a poor neighborhood in Guinea’s capital Conakry with his five-year-old daughter Yeninka.

She was healthy little girl until a few months ago.

SOUNDBITE (French) Soumah Naby, Fisherman:
“She use to walk normally, she would go with her older sister there and the neighbors to fetch water, she used to do everything, and out of the blue, the disease struck us.”

Today, Yeninka is almost completely paralyzed. A victim of polio, a highly infectious disease thought to have been eradicated in Guinea.

Giving her a polio vaccination was the only way to prevent the disease. Unfortunately, Yeninka didn’t receive one.

SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Ibrahima Founyuya Diallo, UNICEF Child Protection Expert: “The poorest areas, the most destitute have sometimes difficulties to access vaccination services and parents have no access to information. They don’t have TV and have no information on routine vaccinations.”

The recent political turmoil in the country took a heavy toll on children’s health. The crisis weakened the entire health system. Last year, Guinea reported 42 polio cases.

SOUNDBITE (French) Dr. Camille Tafsir Soumah, Vaccination Program National Coordinator:
“Because the country went through a period of insufficiencies and instability, the health system was not funded adequately. This led to insufficiencies in the routine immunization system.”

Now, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International and the Guinean government have embarked on a national outbreak response. Four hundred thousand volunteers are hard at work in Guinea and 18 west and central African countries participating in the campaign.

A series of national days of immunization against polio were organized simultaneously in each of those countries to vaccinate every child under five.

In the field, volunteers and health agents are going door to door in a massive effort to reach every child with two drops of oral polio vaccine. Once the children of the household are vaccinated, the agents mark the house with chalk.

The aim is to immunize more than 85 million children under five and stop the polio epidemic before the end of 2010.