LAHORE: In the intensive-care ward of Lahore’s Mayo hospital, pale, spotty children cry in the heat of the Pakistani summer — victims of a devastating measles outbreak.
Punjab, the most populous province of which Lahore is the capital, has borne the brunt of the epidemic. It has 18,000 of the 25,000 cases reported around the country and more than 150, all children, of the 495 deaths. Health experts say ineffective vaccination programmes and poor monitoring have led to the problem.
“Initially people were unaware about this epidemic, so they tried to treat the disease at home and using local street doctors,” doctor Iftikhar Mirza, a spokesman for Mayo, main public hospital, said. “They were even unaware about the vaccination. So, when they came to us, the children were in a critical condition and many had already died.”
Doctor Muhammad Younas, from the Directorate General of Health in Punjab, said the province had seen 17,985 measles cases this year, with 158 deaths. “This is the worst situation in five years and we can confidently say that the number of these cases is much higher than during the previous five years,” he said.
Last year, there were 310 measles deaths in Pakistan, according to the World Health Organization, described in January by a health ministry official as “a record high”.
The WHO uses a more conservative count of cases and deaths, but even by its measure 2013 is on track to be far worse than 2012. Since the start of the year the WHO has recorded 12,951 measles cases and 290 deaths across Pakistan compared with 14,984 cases and 310 deaths in the whole of last year.
The WHO says three consecutive years of severe flooding, which put Pakistan’s health system under severe strain, have helped measles cases rocket from 4,321 in 2010 to the current alarming figure.
Pakistan has a network of vaccination centres for mothers and newborns, and issues vaccination cards for children who are born in hospitals or seen by doctors after birth. There has been opposition from militant Islamists who see the vaccination drives as cover for espionage, and numerous health workers on polio campaigns have been gunned down in recent months.
The US fuelled the conspiracy theories by using a hepatitis vaccination drive in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad as cover for gathering intelligence on the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
An official with the UN Children’s Fund said missed vaccinations had built up over the years to create the current outbreak.
Jaffer Ilyas, a spokesman for the Directorate General of Health in Punjab, said the province had vaccinated 2.6 million children. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has declared a “war against measles” and the province hopes to have the outbreak under control within weeks, Ilyas said. AFP
