Four Million Measles Vaccines Set to Arrive This Week

Bangla Press Desk:   Four million measles vaccines are expected to begin landing in the country this week as the health ministry will launch another special vaccination campaign on September 25 amid unabated measles infections and deaths.

Meanwhile, seven more children died with measles-like symptoms taking the total fatalities linked to measles to 1019 until Saturday 8:0 am.

Of the total fatalities, 100 were confirmed cases with a new fatality in the past hours, said DGHS bulletin.

In the past 24 hours until Thursday 8:00am, as many as 816 suspected and 39 confirmed measles infections were registered. The total number of suspected measles infections rose to 170,638 and confirmed infections to 20,006 since mid-March.

Under the previous special campaign, over 19.47 million children have been vaccinated.

The government is saying that there is no vaccine shortage but the overall coverage is still much below the required 95 per cent. Experts said their calls for well designed and micro planning are unheard of at the field level.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease, which affects individuals of all ages and remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally.

Earlier, Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain said a special immunisation campaign would be launched on September 25.

Officials of the department concerned said that they were also in "preparation stage" for the special vaccination but concrete decisions had not been taken yet, including the target number.

Officials linked to the immunisation campaign at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) wishing not to be named told the FE that decision has not been taken yet. They are working and could reach a decision by this week after analysing the situation on the ground and vaccine availability.

The decision will be made considering the vaccines on hand for regular and special campaigns, they said.

There are regular campaigns on measles, so they will not be able to use all those jabs in the forthcoming special campaign.

Furthermore, the target number has not been finalised yet, and how many children will come under this coverage and how many children are left behind in the previous special campaign.

Additional Director General (Planning and Development) Prof Dr. Foara Tasmim told the FE that they were considering this new special campaign to bring every child under measles vaccination.

"A fresh shipment of four million measles jabs is coming," she added, saying that the details of the campaign will be finalised by this week, including the target number of children.

Public health expert and epidemiologist Dr Mushtuq Husain told the FE that effective outcomes won't be there until there is microplanning for special campaigns.

The EPI has the data where there is low coverage and high infection rate. There they need pocket vaccination under proper microplanning, he added.

The former Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) advisor suggested expanding the special campaign.