11th May 2016 More than 30 mid-wives and nurses participated on a 3-day workshop to review the Immunization Handbook.
The workshop started on May 9th and was conducted at the Tonga Family Health office at Vaiola Motu’a.
Supervising Public Health Nursing Sister from the Ministry of Health, Afu Tei, said the purpose of the review was to input the latest data in the guideline.
“It has been 10 years since the last review in 2005 and we are trying to input the latest data that we have and to update the handbook with the new immunizations that were introduced lately,” she said.
Sister Tei said this was a great accomplishment for the ministry.
“This is a great achievement for the ministry especially with the immunization division because through this review we are thinking of developing an immunization policy for the future.”
One of the latest immunizations that were introduced last year was the moving from Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine to Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine to ensure that there would be no polio around the world and the Pacific region as well.
Sister Tei continues that after the workshop they would finalise everything that was needed to be included in the handbook with the help of a Specialist Doctor from World Health Organization in Fiji.
The Immunization Handbook was a guideline for nurses to follow while practicing immunization.
ENDS
Issued by the Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications