Lahore: Measles cases start emerging in city

The Express Tribune

At least 13 children with measles were brought to two public hospitals in Lahore on Sunday, as the Health Department sought to dispel fears of an epidemic in the province. Five children with the disease were admitted to Services Hospital and five to Mayo Hospital, said doctors on duty. Another three children were discharged after treatment from Mayo Hospital, they said. A Health Department spokesman said that following the outbreak of the disease in Sindh, the government had conducted vaccination campaigns in districts close to the border. He said there was no measles epidemic in Lahore and arrangements for the treatment of patients had been made at all public hospitals. However, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique called an emergency meeting of Health Department officials for Monday to review the measles situation in the Punjab. Professor Yaqoob Kazi, a paediatrician and former dean of the Institute of Public Health, said that for each child affected with measles brought to the hospital, there could be 300-400 unreported cases.

He advocated an immediate and widespread vaccination campaign “before this becomes an epidemic”.

No measles deaths in Layyah

The Health Department spokesman said that 1,408 measles cases had been reported so far in the Punjab while the number of suspected deaths stood at seven, one each in Gujranwala and Kasur and five in Rajanpur. Reports that four children had died from the disease in Layyah were false, he said. They had died of pneumonia. Layyah’s executive district officer (Health) has sent medical teams including child specialists to the affected areas and they have started treatment of the patients, he said. These teams treated 150 children suffering from fever and diarrhoea and vaccinated more than 300 children against measles. EDO (Health) Dr Muhammad Sajjad said that arrangements had been made at Layyah district headquarters hospital for the treatment of measles patients, though no such patient was currently admitted. The Health Department spokesman said that the Punjab government had conducted “mopping up” vaccination campaigns in areas close to the border with Sindh and Balochistan following the outbreak of the disease in Sindh. He added that public hospitals across the province were prepared to treat the disease.

Poor vaccination coverage

Prof Kazi said that the outbreak was a result of low coverage of the Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI). He said the disease had been eradicated in many countries and it was unfortunate that it persisted in Pakistan. The rate of immunisation in the country is below 50 per cent, he said. “This situation is very dangerous. Some days ago many cases of diphtheria were also being brought to public hospitals. It became an epidemic but not much attention was paid to it. We should have these diseases, which can be avoided through vaccination, under control, but that needs an immunisation rate above 90 per cent,” he said. Measles is particularly dangerous for children who also suffer from malnutrition, raising the mortality rate for the disease by 80 per cent, Prof Kazi said. Children given the first measles vaccination injection have a protection rate of 65 per cent against the disease. Children administered the second injection, at the age of 15 months, have a protection rate of 85 per cent, he added. “Kids who have been given the first injection should be given an additional injection when the disease takes the shape of an epidemic,” he said. Children infected with measles must be kept in isolation, as the disease is highly contagious, he said. “A person not vaccinated against the disease who comes in close contact with an infected person has a 90 per cent chance of catching measles,” he said.