Measles And Polio: Awareness seminar held at GCUF

Awareness program for measles and such diseases, from which over 158,000 people died in 2011.

FAISALABAD:

At least 158,000 people died from measles across the world in 2011, participants at a seminar were informed on Thursday.

The awareness seminar titled: Measles and Polio was held at the Government College University Faisalabad in collaboration with its Students’ Affairs Directorate, the city district government, the United Nations International Children’s Education Fund and the World Health Organisation.

EDO Abdul Rauf said that more than two million children from six months old to 10 years of age will be vaccinated during the ongoing anti measles campaign in the district.  He said 4,500 workers had been deputed to administer measles vaccine.

Dr Shoaib Ahmed from World Health Organisation said that 95 per cent of the deaths caused by measles were reported from low-income countries with weak health infrastructures.

In many developing countries, too, he said, measles was endemic. In 2013, he said, over 20,000 cases had been diagnosed in Pakistan so far with around 200 deaths.

He said that in developing countries, measles affected 30 million children every year and caused one million deaths. Measles resulted in blindness in 15,000 to 60,000 cases in the world every year.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2013.