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The Tanzanian Ministry of Health is encouraging citizens to participate in a weeklong vaccination programme that began on Wednesday (April 25th).

"We need to vaccinate all children, although we target mothers who had missed out on the chance to have their children vaccinated under the routine immunisation programmes," Yussuf Makame of the ministry's Expanded Programme on Immunisation department said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The free vaccinations overlap with African Vaccination Week, April 23rd-29th. In Zanzibar, the ministry is vaccinating infants under the age of one against a host of diseases including tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria and measles. Makame said the vaccinations are part of the country's plan to reach the Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

Earlier this week, Minister of Health and Social Welfare Hadji Mponda said Tanzania's vaccination programmes have already reduced mortality rates for children under five by more than 80% from 1999 through 2010, Tanzania's The Citizen reported.