Measles epidemic in Balochistan

Other provinces allocate funds, launch fairly successful campaigns to combat measles

Balochistan’s health department failed to carry out its anti-measles campaign in the last month of 2014, belying repeated claims by the health minister that the launch of an emergency campaign was imminent.

It is shocking and deplorable that in the 21st century, children are still dying of this easily preventable childhood disease. The other three provinces have all allocated funds and launched fairly successful campaigns to combat measles. Only Balochistan has lagged far behind in this initiative.

The Balochistan government claims that health is one of its top priorities, yet it has been unable to allocate the relatively modest sum of Rs137 million which was needed to launch the anti-measles campaign.

Meanwhile, the epidemic continues to wrack the province, with major outbreaks in Zhob, Qila Abdullah, Lasbela, Dera Bugti, Kohlu, Pishin, Kalat, Ziarat, and Chagai. So far in this latest epidemic, more than 1,350 children have been affected. In the absence of a well-coordinated vaccination programme, more than four million children remain at risk of contracting measles in Balochistan.

The last anti-measles campaign in Balochistan was held in 2012. The mismanagement of that campaign was at least partially to blame for a 2013 outbreak that claimed the lives of some 43 children and affected 789 others. In June 2013, the Global Alliance for Vaccine (Gavi) agreed to partly fund an anti-measles campaign that would vaccinate approximately 4.4 million children between the ages of six and 10. The provincial government’s 48 per cent share of the cost (a mere Rs137 million), however, has not been forthcoming.

The chief secretary of Balochistan, along with the three other chief secretaries, agreed to the conditions for the campaign’s launch. The other three provinces followed through with their campaigns. But Balochistan did precious little. Its health department records show that across the province, only 16 per cent of the children were fully immunised against nine common childhood diseases, including measles.

Nationwide, according to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13, at least 111 children out of every 1,000 live births die before the age of five. Of these, 97 do not even make it past their first birthday. These odds are not improved by the fact that the majority of children under the age of five are also chronically malnourished.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2015.