KARACHI, March 17: Sindh, including Karachi, may be in the grip of a measles epidemic as 14 children have so far died of complications arising out of the deadly virus. The province last faced such an epidemic less than two years ago.

This is a strange development because a region wracked by a particular affliction is usually revisited by the same after three to four years, said a press release of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) on Monday.

According to the release, so far about 3,500 children have been registered with the various teaching hospitals and more than 200 have been admitted. Of them, 14 have died of various complications.

Sixty-five per cent of the children were admitted to hospitals because of pneumonia, 25 per cent due to encephalitis and ten per cent suffering from diarrhoea.

The handout said 16 per cent of the children were less than one year of age. The percentage of children of less than five years stood at 63 and those of more than five years at 21.

The measles cases were reported from all over Karachi but the areas which were affected more by the disease were Lyari, Pathan Colony, Malir, Landhi and Korangi. Many of the cases were reported from the interior of the province as well.

According to the WHO, measles lies behind the death of more than seven per cent of all deaths among children of less than five years. Half of such cases involve children of below one year.

The press release pointed out that there was no treatment of the measles virus, just vaccinations that act as barriers to infection. For this purpose, an expanded programme of immunization was launched in 1978.

In 1990, the mortality rate among children of less than five years stood at 128 and, according to a Unicef report, it still stands at 110 per 1,000 live births.

Measles bugs prevalent in Pakistan reportedly give higher rate of complications than anywhere else in the world. As a result, in 15 per cent of the cases the vaccinations don’t work, said the press release.

The WHO advises “accelerated measles control” programmes in such cases.