Pakistan: Measles spreads in survivors' camp

By Our Staff Correspondent

MUZAFFARABAD, Dec 3: Health authorities are striving to contain an outbreak of measles in an area south of here after 14 children contracted the viral disease and one of them expired.

"So far, 14 cases of measles have been diagnosed," District Health Officer (DHO) Mahmood Ahmed Khan told Dawn.

The cases were reported from a squalid camp of earthquake survivors near Hattian Bala, 45km south of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir capital along Muzaffarabad-Srinagar road.

A doctor associated with a UN aid agency said on return from Hattian Bala that he had seen 10 victims of the disease -- one boy and nine girls between the ages of eight months and five years -- in a field hospital run by the Medicines Sans Frontiers.

Another victim, a 10-month old boy, Shabal Hussain, died on Thursday, he said.

Confirming the death, the DHO said that in all 14 children had been diagnosed with measles at the MSF hospital which also had a paediatrician unit. Five of them were unvaccinated and the rest vaccinated, he added.

Immunisation teams could not locate the camp situated on the back side of an army unit during an immunisation drive, he said.

The United Nations Fund for Children and the ministry of health had launched a two-week campaign last month to immunize around 800,000 children among the quake survivors.

The target of the campaign was vaccinating children up to age of 15 against diseases like measles, polio, diphtheria and tetanus. The jabs also contained vitamin A to help fight respiratory diseases expected to rise in chilling cold by up to 50 per cent.

"We have sent the teams again and they will go from door to door to ensure that hundred per cent coverage (child vaccination) is achieved," the DHO said, adding that he had also ordered a post-vaccination evaluation drive in the area.

"It's sort of a sweep-up operation to be completed in one week up to the (south-eastern) Leepa valley."

"We are striving to contain the disease which has not attained alarming proportions yet," the DHO said.

He said the immunisation teams had failed to achieve 100 per cent target due to migration of quake-survivors. "If our target in an area was 200 children, we could inoculate only 70 because others had moved out," he said.

A doctor with the UN agency said a patient - a one-year old girl - who had shifted from her village with her family, could transfer the infectious disease to others.

"Health workers must locate the girl at the earliest to save others from falling prey to the infectious disease," he said.

The DHO said they had directed the teams to locate the girl and immunise other children in contact with her as well.