Vaccination ramps up in Rohingya refugee camps

PHNOM PENH: Aid workers are ramping up efforts to vaccinate half a million children against diphtheria in and around Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, said the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The respiratory disease has killed as many as 31 people and infected about 4,000 since it broke out in November in the camps, which house more than 655,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar military operations that began in August.

About 316,000 Rohingya children were vaccinated last month, according to a Sunday statement by the WHO, the United Nations’ health agency. They will need two more doses, spaced a month apart.

In the meantime, health workers are vaccinating another 160,000 Bangladeshi children who live in communities near to refugee settlements in the border district of Cox’s Bazar. Diphtheria had almost been eradicated in Bangladesh, with only two cases reported in 2016, said Catalin Bercaru, a WHO spokesman in the capital, Dhaka.