DUSHANBE, October 3, Asia-Plus -- Turkey’s Ministry of Health has donated 544,000 measles vaccines to Tajikistan.

According to the Tajik Ministry of Health, this amount is enough fore a yearlong work.

Shamsiddin Jobirov, the head of Tajikistan’s Imunoprophylactic Center, that measles has shown downward tendency in the country and the plan to have eliminated the disease by 2010.  

The highest rate of measles was reported in Tajikistan in 2003 – 2,155 cases.  Due to mass measles immunization campaign amongst children between two months and six years old carried out in the country the disease was practically eliminate in 2004, when only four cases of measles were officially registered in the country, according to the source.  “No cases of measles were registered in 2005 while three cases of the disease have been registered this year,” the source said. 

 The Imunoprophylactic Center and its branches in the provinces annually take routine immunization measures and a mass measles immunization campaign is scheduled for 2009, Jobirov said.