Final push in measles campaign

The final phase of this year’s anti-measles campaign was launched this week in a massive effort to immunise millions of children.

“Measles kills more children in Pakistan than any other diseases that immunisation can prevent,” Melissa Corkum, a spokeswoman for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

“There is no specific treatment for measles; only an appropriate dose of measles vaccine can prevent this disease,” she said.

According to health officials, each year an estimated 2.1 million cases of measles occur in Pakistan, resulting in 21,000 children dying from measles and its complications - 58 children a day.

But with regular measles vaccination coverage in 2006 estimated at just 63 percent, a considerable proportion of children go unprotected.

To counter that, this year the government launched a campaign targeting 63 million children between nine months and 13 years of age between March 2007 and March 2008 - making it the world’s largest measles campaign to date.

Global evidence suggests a measles catch-up campaign is an effective way to reach children at risk and raise the population’s immunity against measles within a very short time. “If the population immunity can be raised to at least 95 percent among the susceptible age group, interruption of the indigenous virus and thus preventing outbreaks is possible,” Corkum said.

Photo: UNICEF Pakistan

Children at a school in Pakistan line up to be vaccinated against measles. Schools play a major role in the campaign

In 2001, the World Health Organization and UNICEF adopted a joint strategic plan for measles mortality reduction endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2003.

Pakistani health authorities developed an action plan to reduce the disease burden by 50 percent and to attain elimination by 2010. Global measles deaths have fallen from an estimated 873,000 in 1999 to 345,000 in 2005 - a 60 percent reduction. In Africa, the progress has been even greater; deaths have been reduced by 75 percent.

“This reinforces that the strategy works,” Corkum maintained.

Up to 20,000 people are employed in the 16-day campaign covering the southern province of Sindh, as well as parts of Balochistan, North West Frontier Province, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A final phase covering Pakistan’s populous Punjab province and the capital will take place in early 2008.

“The measles campaign, unlike that of the polio campaigns, will not involve vaccination teams going house-to-house, so ensuring that vaccination teams immunise all the children in each school is vital. Also ensuring that all out of school children are brought to the health facility or outreach centre is critical,” she said.

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