Routine vaccinations unavailable for infants, pregnant women in Rakhine State

The unavailability of vaccines has put the health of pregnant mothers, newborns, and others at serious risk in parts of Rakhine State controlled by the Arakan Army (AA), according to medical workers in the state. A nurse working for the Arakkha Health Department (AHD) said some local people have been unable to access the vaccines since late 2023, when the AA launched a major offensive against the Myanmar military and aimed at taking full control of the state. “We haven’t been able to administer vaccinations for nearly two years,” the nurse said. “It’s highly dangerous for children.” Vaccinations were provided free of cost at public hospitals and clinics throughout Myanmar before the country’s 2021 military coup, but this public service was among others suspended in areas where fighting broke out in response. Pregnant women are supposed to receive a total of four shots, including diphtheria and tetanus vaccines, but public services affiliated with the AA and its political wing—the United League of Arakan (ULA)—have only been administering tetanus vaccines, according to the AHD nurse. Although the ULA/AA has established the AHD to provide vital health care in the 14 townships captured by the AA in Rakhine State, junta blockades have stropped the flow of international aid and essential goods like food and medicine to areas under their control. Conditions in those AA-controlled areas no longer allow for vaccination, another nurse explained, and the risks are grave. “If vaccines aren’t available, mothers can get obstetric tetanus when the umbilical cord is cut after childbirth,” she said. “Children also must receive these vaccines. Even missing one dose is not acceptable,” she continued, adding, “Children can also develop deficiencies like rickets that would have effects lasting a lifetime. These are conditions that cannot be cured with medicine.” Parents’ worries about their children’s health have grown under these circumstances. A new father in an AA-controlled area of Rakhine State said families were still waiting and hoping for the ULA/AA to provide adequate medical services. “My son was born just over a month ago,” the man said. “He hasn’t received any shots yet. The AA really must find ways to make vaccinations available.” At a press conference held on August 11, AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha said the group was taking every approach it could to make vaccines available for young children, and had also been working to ensure tuberculosis and HIV patients’ timely access to the medicines they needed. However, he did not give details about the AA’s policy or any obstacles preventing its implementation. The Arakkha Health Department says it has provided health training and called on people from all ethnic communities in the state to take jobs or volunteer as health workers. NUG health programme The World Health Organisation declared polio—a disease known for damaging the nervous system in children and causing paralysis of the limbs, weakness, or death—to have been eradicated in Myanmar in 2014. However, in July 2019, a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) strain emerged in Karen (Kayin) State’s Hpapun Township. More polio strains were later discovered in other territories controlled by ethnic armed groups, including some emerging after the 2021 coup. In response, the health ministry of the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG)—a body formed and endorsed by ousted civilian members of parliament following the coup—announced on July 3 that it had been working with various ethnically based health organisations to vaccinate children under five. The health ministry reported that 30,000 children under five had received vaccinations in Karen, Karenni (Kayah), Chin, and Shan states as well as Sagaing and Magway regions, including 2,000 vaccinated in the past year in the latter two regions. In junta-controlled territories, children are still receiving routine vaccinations. A local resident from a resistance-controlled area in Yinmarbin District, Sagaing Region said local parents seeking vaccine doses for their children under five have to risk traveling to Monywa, which remains under the military regime’s control. According to a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Myanmar had one of the highest proportions of children who had not received some or all of their recommended vaccinations between 2019 and 2021. Some 60 percent had received no vaccines at all and were highly vulnerable to contracting preventable diseases, the UNICEF report said. The Myanmar junta’s public health ministry has issued guidelines for children to receive scheduled doses of vaccines for tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, influenza, pneumonia, diarrhoea, Japanese encephalitis, measles, rubella, and chickenpox, as well as cervical cancer vaccines for girls. AA medical team members treating local residents (Photo: APM)

Routine vaccinations unavailable for infants, pregnant women in Rakhine State

The blockades imposed and violence perpetrated by Myanmar’s military throughout the country have put critical health services out of reach for children under five and others in need of care

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