Vaccination campaign for Kosovar Albanian refugee children --former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia April-May 1999.

This paper reports the first vaccination campaign its results and follow-up activities for Kosovar Albanian refugee children. Children aged <4 years without evidence of full vaccination on a valid vaccination card from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were vaccinated. Children aged 0-2 months received Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine those aged 2-9 months received oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) and diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus toxoid (DPT) vaccine and children aged 9-48 months received OPV and measles vaccine. The vaccination campaign employed teams of 15-20 Ministry of Health and Kosovar Albanian physicians nurses and administrators. In 5 of the 7 refugee camps a tent-by-tent survey was conducted on the last day of the campaign to evaluate vaccination coverage. However of the 7995 children who presented to the vaccination sites in the 7 camps only 7239 (90.5%) were vaccinated 260 (3.3%) were not vaccinated due to contraindications and 496 (6.2%) had up-to-date vaccination cards. The results of vaccination activities after the first mass vaccination campaign for refugees demonstrate that rapid population turnover can substantially reduce camp-specific coverage rates in a short period.