• Health dept data shows 132 children died from vaccine-preventable disease this year
• Expert laments parents not utilising free vaccines against 12 major diseases

KARACHI: Measles — a highly contagious but vaccine-preventable viral infection — is rearing its ugly head again after affecting thousands of children and killing at least 150 children this year in the province, it has emerged.

However, the health department data confirmed the deaths of 132 children this year with more than 13,000 suspected and 6,670 confirmed cases. Surprisingly, it shows only three deaths in Karachi.

The year saw 149 outbreaks across the province with 18 outbreaks reported in Karachi alone.

Dadu has seen the highest number of outbreaks (21) followed by Tharparkar (20) and Khairpur (10).

From Nov 1 till Dec 14, a total of 350 suspected cases and 155 confirmed cases had been reported in the province. A total of 749,670 children were vaccinated against the disease.

Speaking to Dawn, health experts said that cases of measles were on the rise in the city with the onset of winter following a brief ‘respite’, while warning about a sharp increase in cases in subsequent weeks.

“For the last two to three weeks, measles cases have increased. Currently, we have 10 admitted children affected by the disease,” a senior doctor at the government-run Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital & Research Centre (SIDHRC) said, adding that children were reporting with complications, indicating their delayed arrival at the facility.

The doctors at the hospital also pointed out that some of the patients were not responding to medication, probably due to their malnourished status.

The hospital’s data showed that 65 children had lost their lives to diphtheria (31) and measles (34), both vaccine-preventable diseases, this year.

A total of 829 children have been admitted with measles (713) and diphtheria (116) so far.

Officials at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) didn’t respond to requests for data on measles.

Senior paediatricians working in the private sector also confirmed a gradual increase in cases of measles and said that they were seeing four to five cases of children daily presenting with clear clinical signs of measles.

Natural ventilation

The recurrence of the viral infection, they point out, is being observed following a significant drop in cases of the viral infection for a few months. However, they don’t describe this disease pattern as unusual and say that it happens every year in winter during which people tend to remain indoors and keep their houses warm by closing all sources of natural ventilation.

International studies, they say, have indicated a strong association between ventilation and air movements in buildings and transmission and spread of infectious diseases such as measles, tuberculosis and influenza.

High measles cases

“This year, cases of measles seemed to have broken all previous records. The numbers were so high that even the word ‘high’ can’t describe the severity and enormity of the situation,” said senior paediatrician Dr Ved Vaswani, currently associated with Burhani Hospital and Al-Mustafa Medical Centre, adding that every third child was reporting with measles until a few months ago.

According to him, measles is now being reported again in children below nine months of age and even in vaccinated children.

“They might have got infected due to their compromised health. This viral infection is more prevalent in thickly populated, crowded areas with poor hygienic conditions and low literacy levels, especially in female population,” he said, underscoring the need for public awareness of the disease that gets complicated, if early signs are ignored.

Dr Khalid Shafi of the Pakistan Paediatric Association held the parents solely responsible for child mortality and morbidity due to vaccine-preventable diseases.

“The majority of children falling victim to polio, diphtheria or measles are unvaccinated. This pocket of child population is a persistent threat to the community.”

He regretted that parents were negligent towards their child’s fundamental health rights. “The EPI programme offers free of cost vaccines against 12 major diseases, including measles, polio and diphtheria. It’s unfortunate that parents are not making use of this facility.”

Highlighting government efforts, EPI programme director Dr Muhammad Naeem said that the affected children were those who had missed their doses during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have significantly increased surveillance and case response activities. The staff is being trained and facilitated to increase accessibility while a major initiative has been taken to immunise children who have missed their doses during the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said, adding that it’s the first time that real-time data was being shared with the public.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2024