Measles upswing: 70 more cases, most kids were not vaccinated

3-day polio immunisation campaign kicks off.

LAHORE:

“Eighty per cent of children with measles have not completed their vaccination while the parents of the remaining 20 per cent say they got their children vaccinated but don’t have proper records,” officials in the Health Department told The Express Tribune on Monday.

“Some 70 cases of measles were reported in Lahore on Monday. Case histories reveal that the majority of the children have not been vaccinated,” a senior doctor at Children’s Hospital said.

He mentioned that measles was also spreading in the United Kingdom. He said that about two years ago certain researchers had released findings that the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism in children. Some parents had then stopped getting their children vaccinated, he said. Now this suggestion had been disproved but cases of measles in the UK were on the rise, he added.

“Parents need to be made aware that they need to get their children vaccinated. Children whose mothers had measles in their childhood are immune to the disease for nine months. The vaccination coverage should be increased from 57 per cent to 90 per cent to control this disease,” he said. He added that some 40 per cent of children die of measles if complications arise and largely children who are malnourished die.

Separately, Post Graduate Medical Institute Principal Prof Anjum Habib Vohra stressed that doctors must make patients aware about preventive measures against seasonal diseases, their symptoms and treatment and importance of cleanliness for being protected against the dengue virus. He said that high dependency units with modern equipment have been prepared in the back drop of dengue return.

New DG appointed

The summary to appoint Dr Tanveer as the new Director General of Health has been approved. Dr Tanveer was previously serving as the head of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation.

Immunisation campaign against polio starts in Punjab

The three-day National Immunisation Campaign against Polio started in Punjab on Monday. It will continue till April 17.  A Health Department spokesperson said that during the three-day anti-polio campaign, polio vaccine would be administered to 16.5 million children up to the age of five years.

The spokesman added that the Health Department had formed 32,899 mobile teams which would go door-to-door to administer polio drops. He said that the Health Department had deputed 4,114 teams at static points in all the hospitals and medical centres. Moreover, 2,119 vaccination teams have been deputed at city exits. He said that the Health Department had also deputed teams at the airport, railway stations, bus terminals and the toll plazas on the motorway so that travelling children could be administered polio drops.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2013.