The posting yesterday on the Liver Foundation said that "Myanmar gives medical treatment and vaccination against malaria and [other diseases] free of charge." Since there is no vaccine against malaria, there is reason to distrust the article.
The moderator of Health in Myanmar has received with thanks the following information on the Liver Foundation activities from a reader.
There does not appear to be any targeting to ensure that people at risk of hepatitis B are immunised.
Jamie
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The vaccination program is a joint effort between Liver Foundation and MoH (Now MoHS) since 2015. MoH received millions of Hep B vaccines (pediatric dose) from China as a donation since last couple of years ago. The original plan was to do birth-dose Hep B vaccination but for some reasons, MoH could not start the birth-dose activity. At the same time they have Pentavalent vaccine for <5 yr EPI program. And so MoH asked Liver Foundation if it can use these vaccines before they get expired because Liver Foundation has been running vaccination program (financially supported by local Private donors). Liver foundation did a vaccine trial (using these vaccines from MoH which are produced by Tiantan Beijing. You can find a study here which used the same vaccine http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/9/06-037002/en/) in accordance with WHO protocol in coordiantion with Department of Medical Research before accepting the vaccines. The result was good and shared the findings in this year Myanmar Research Congress. Then, Liver Foundation started to run vaccination program by using these vaccines since last year Jul/Aug.
The vaccination is targeted for age >5 years. The location is not limited because our approach is not solely to be implemented by ourselves. But we network with different types of CSOs throughout the country like Liver Foundation Branch offices, Blood Donor Groups, Women groups, development groups, local physicians, philanthropists and other types of CSOs. We, as Liver Foundation (YGN), also do some vaccination activities around Yangon and some cities. We provide/distribute vaccines to CSOs in FOC. The CSOs share the cost for test kits, syringe, and other related cost. Sometimes, Liver Foundation also supported for these cost by using it's own fund. Till now (last month) we have used 1.6 millions of vaccines.
For the seropositive cases, we can't provide treatment right now but we do counseling and referral. For some cases, we could network with some private donors for treatment. But, mostly, we cannot provide treatment.
Overall, I see this is as a good model of partnership for Hep B vaccination by government (MoH), Liver Foundation and other CSOs.You can visit our website here http://www.liverfoundation-myanmar.org/who-we-are.html
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