PESHAWAR, June 3: Measles has resurfaced in the NWFP with a large number of children catching the disease despite having been vaccinated against it, say paediatricians.
“We admitted 15 children last week who developed severe complications after being affected by measles. All these children had received anti-measles vaccine,” said an office-bearer of the Pakistan Paediatrics Association (PPA) on Thursday.
He pointed out that the success ratio of immunisation did not go beyond 50 per cent.
According to another paediatrician, one dose of vaccine is given in Pakistan while in other countries children are administered two doses; first when they attain the age of nine months and the other at the age of 15 months.
He said ineffectiveness of vaccines might also be attributed to poor maintenance of the cold storage facilities required to restore vaccines at certain temperatures. He said an interruption in electricity supply was enough to render the vaccines ineffective.
“The WHO reported about 450 cases of measles in major hospitals last year and the health department reported 225 cases in the entire province,” said an official of the World Health Organisation.
He said that 17 per cent of the children in NWFP, or a total of 5.5 million, under five years of age required immunisation every year. A PPA official said that most children affected by measles belonged to rural areas where vaccine’s ineffectiveness was understandable due to heat and poor maintenance.
