LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid has appealed to the parents, teachers, ulema and civil society to come forward and join hands with the government for eradication of measles from the country through a vaccination drive starting from Monday (today).

“Let us make the future of our children safe by ensuring that every child is vaccinated against measles,” said the minister in a message on Sunday.

She said 15,000 teams had been deputed all over the province to administer about 21 million children anti-measles vaccine during the campaign that would continue till Oct 27. All districts had been provided with injections, syringes and other gadgets for the purpose, she added.

Trained social mobilisers had been going door-to-door to motivate parents to get their children vaccinated, she said.

Expressing satisfaction over preparedness of health department, the minister said only a preventive measure could save children from the epidemic.

Meanwhile, Punjab Health Services Director-General and Coordinator of Emergency Operations Centre Dr Munir Ahmad told Dawn that children between six to 83 months of age would be inoculated in the province during the drive. In rest of the country, children in the age group of nine to 59 months would be inoculated.

There have been an increase in measles cases in the age group of six months up to seven years which necessitated expansion of the targeted children.

“We have 3,469 suspected, 963 lab confirmed cases in 2017. The figure till end-July of the ongoing year has been 10,827 (suspected) and 683 (lab confirmed) cases. This shows that the positivity rate has gone up to 43 percent in the ongoing year from the 34pc of 2017,” the DG said.

Dr Munir said the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef had provided technical support for the campaign while international donor GAVI provided vaccine for 17.4 million children. The Punjab government arranged inoculation of 4.5m children from its own resources.

“Measles is a communicable and contagious disease but it is fully preventable. Its season begins around March 15 and lasts till June,” he said.

To a question, Dr Munir said the vaccine was quite safe and had no side-effect on children. “It’s normal for a baby to be a bit upset after having an injection. In very few cases, children have mild fever, swelling or rashes after the inoculation. The symptoms disappear within 24 hours. Parents must inform the vaccinator if a child is malnourished, has chronic illnesses like asthma, tuberculosis or hereditary diseases like thalasaemia or diabetes before inoculation.

“We have improved cold chain efficacy to ensure effectiveness of all types of vaccines we administer to children. We have doubled the cold chain capacity,” claimed Dr Munir.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018