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Friday March 29, 2024

Sindh in grip of infectious diseases as lockdown causes drop in routine immunisation

By M. Waqar Bhatti
April 25, 2020

At a time when Pakistan is trying its best to contain the coronavirus spread, health authorities in Sindh fear an outbreak of measles, Extensively Drug-Resistant (XDR) typhoid, diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases among children in the province, especially in Karachi where most parents are not visiting the vaccination centres for last two months to get their children vaccinated.

“There is a measles outbreak in Sindh, especially Karachi where we have seen more measles cases in the first four months this year than the entire last year. There is no doubt that this is due to the prevailing lockdown and related issues, but the routine vaccination among children has dropped alarmingly and it is a serious cause of concern,” renowned paediatrician and National Institute of Child Health (NICH) Director Prof Dr Jamal Raza said on Friday.

Talking to journalists at the start of World Immunisation Week, which is observed from April 24 every year to emphasise the importance of vaccines, Prof Raza said that undoubtedly the COVID-19 was a serious health issue and the entire world was looking for its vaccine. But unfortunately, he added, people were not getting their children vaccinated against such diseases whose vaccines were available and children were vaccinated against these diseases free of charge in Pakistan.

“The routine vaccination has dropped up to 60 per cent in Sindh and some districts, including Malir and South, it has dropped as low as 33 per cent. Due to the lockdown and other problems, parents are getting their children vaccinated. They should take this issue seriously and get their children vaccinated as soon as possible against measles as well as 10 other vaccine-preventable diseases,” Prof Raza appealed.

To a query, he said that so far, only a few children had contracted COVID-19 in Karachi and the rest of Sindh but the number of children affected with measles was more than 700 in the first four months of this year. He warned that if children were not vaccinated against measles, it could prove more lethal and harmful for children as compared to the COVID-19. He said that not only measles but they were also seeing cases of XDR typhoid and diphtheria from different areas of Karachi. All these diseases were preventable, whose vaccines were available at centres of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and public health facilities in the province, he added.

EPI Sindh Project Director Dr Akram Sultan confirmed that Sindh was heading towards an “outbreak of measles if parents continued to stay at homes and refused to get their children vaccinated against the vaccine-preventable disease”. He said measles was more contagious than the COVID-19 and it could seriously harm children if they were not vaccinated against it.

The EPI official conceded that soon after the COVID-19 outbreak in the world and the lockdown situation in Pakistan, many of their centres remained closed at the end of February and March 2020, and that their staff also preferred to avoid going outside their homes. But now, he added, they had been provided with the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the vaccinator centre staff and over 90 per cent of the fixed EPI centres were open to vaccinate children in the province.

“In areas under a complete lockdown, we have planned to send our teams of vaccinators and vaccinate children against measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” Dr Akram Sultan added.

A renowned infectious diseases expert at the Indus Hospital Karachi, Dr Naseem Salahuddin, also feared an outbreak of measles in Sindh like in 2018 when dozens of children had died due to it. He urged the parents to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible.

Dr Salahuddin also called for import and availability of the measles vaccine in the country, saying due to the lockdown and travel restrictions, importers were facing problems in getting the vaccine delivered to Pakistan, fearing that it could result in a serious public health issue.

Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) Sindh General Secretary Prof Dr Khalid Shafi also urged the parents to get their children vaccinated against measles, XDR typhoid, diphtheria and other preventable diseases, saying the COVID-19 was not as dangerous for children as these contagious diseases. Fortunately, he added, vaccines against all these diseases were available and parents could get their children vaccinated against them.

“Parents should take all precautionary measures while going out to get their children vaccinated, they should wear face masks, hand gloves and use sanitisers but it is utmost important to get their children vaccinated against 11 vaccine-preventable diseases,” Prof Shafi added.