KARACHI: The Sindh government is all set to launch an immunisation drive from Nov 15 against measles and rubella with the help of 160,000 trained staff, targeting 18.6 million children across the province in homes, public and private schools, and madressahs as well as informal schools.

Personnel of police, Rangers and the Army will provide security cover to the vaccination staff.

This was stated by health experts at an orientation session organised on measles and rubella on Friday at the Karachi Press Club.

The nationwide campaign, part of a global initiative for elimination of measles and rubella, will end on Nov 27 in the country.

Around 18.6m children of Sindh will be inoculated

“Children from nine months to 15 years will be vaccinated during the campaign to be carried out by trained staff, including lady health workers, nurses as well as vaccinators,” said Dr Ahsan Bhurgari representing the Sindh-Extended Programme for Immunisation (EPI).

Teams would pay door-to-door visits as well as reach out to children enrolled in public, private schools, madressahs and informal schools, he added.

‘No serious side effects’

In reply to a question about any side effects of the vaccine, Dr Waqar Soomro, also representing the EPI-Sindh, said the vaccines were the same used in numerous other countries with no serious side effects.

“However, to handle any such situation, we have trained a significant number of doctors. Ambulance services of Chippa, Edhi and Amn will be on high alert during the drive,” he said.

Explaining the significance of the drive, Prof Jamal Raza, former director of the National Institute of Child Health and currently the executive director of Sindh Institute of Child Health, said both measles and rubella were viral diseases that could easily be prevented with vaccination.

“Through vaccination, we cannot only save lives, but also prevent several congenital defects in children. Last year, there were 9.7m measles cases in the world with some 140,000 deaths,” he said.

127 deaths this year in Pakistan

“This year, there were 8,357 reported cases of measles infection in the country with 127 deaths. We believe this number must be higher as a significant number of mortalities occurred at home,” he added.

According to Prof Raza, there have been campaigns in the past targeting these diseases, but absolute elimination of any disease required consolidated and consistent efforts.

“A greater number of infections and deaths from measles this year surely indicate gaps in our strategies. Secondly, I must emphasise that parents understand the need for vaccination, reject rumours surrounding the drive and save their children.”

Asked about the link between malnourishment and vaccine’s efficacy, he said there was no doubt that clinical outcomes of vaccines were better in healthy children, but measles was a disease that led to malnourishment.

“This is why vaccination against measles is extremely important,” he said, adding that rubella’s symptoms were similar to that of measles which was why the former was called German measles.

Sunil Raja, communication specialist at the EPI-Sindh, spoke about how awareness was created in the media about the campaign being supported by Unicef and the World Health Organisation.

“The campaign will cover 43,026 public and 20,872 private schools, besides 8,649 madressahs and 1,380 informal schools,” he said.

The vaccines will be available free of cost at public health facilities and outreach sites.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2021