Low measles vaccination in 3 southern border provinces causes 5 deaths
Disease Control Department in a rush to vaccinate students
The Disease Control Department plans to rush measle vaccines to young school kids in the three southern border provinces after the disease outbreak killed five people there last month, the department chief said.
Director-general Thongchai Kiratihattayakorn said on Saturday that measles and German measles were communicable diseases of concern in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces because of the low vaccination rate in the Muslim-dominated southern border provinces.
He said a subcommittee on immunity promotion held a meeting on Friday to discuss the measle situation in the deep South and agreed that the department would have to step up vaccination among young school pupils to provide immunity.
The subcommittee was informed that three children under 15 had died of measles last month and the two other victims were adults aged 32 years old and 43 years old.
The subcommittee was informed that from January 1 to September 2 this year, 4,408 suspected cases of measles and German measles were reported in the three southern border provinces after patients with rashes and high fever came to see doctors at clinics and hospitals in the provinces.
Of the cases, 2,317 patients were confirmed in lab tests to have measles and 371 or 8.41% of them suffered from complications of lung infections. The fatality rate was 0.12%.
Thongchai said measles could be prevented with vaccines that normally are given in two doses – the first dose when a child is 9-12 months old and the second dose at 18 months.
Thongchai said that in other parts of the country, 80-90% of parents take their children to receive the necessary vaccines, but in the deep South, only 40-50% of toddlers received vaccines.
As a result, when there was an outbreak of measles, the disease spread fast or at the rate of one infecting 50 others, he said.
Thonghchai said the department would have to rush vaccination of pupils at schools during the current semester, as it would be harder for the authorities to go to their homes to give measles vaccines when schools close for the mid-year break.
