Telangana takes up anti-measles drive

District health officers have been alerted to take-up door-to-door visits to vulnerable children with symptoms of measles

Hyderabad: There have been no instances of measles outbreak in Telangana, even as the State health department has undertaken a series of measures on mission mode to counter the threat of the highly infectious disease, following its outbreak in Maharashtra and other States.

Senior officials from Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare have said that all the district health officers have been alerted to take-up door-to-door visits to vulnerable children with symptoms of measles and also administer Measles Rubella Containing Vaccine (MRCV) wherever it is necessary.

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In the past one week or so, there have been no instances of a surge in cases of measles in Hyderabad, senior doctors said.
“We do not have a single measles patient at Fever Hospital, although the entire health machinery is alert. Given the outbreak of measles in other States, it’s always better for parents to administer the pending second dose of measles vaccines,” advised Superintendent, Fever Hospital, Dr K Shankar.

Physicians familiar with the measles outbreak in other States have said that the outbreak could be related to the Covid pandemic, which dominated the public health response for over two years across the world. Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) also said that the measles vaccination coverage had steadily declined since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

“In 2021, a record high of nearly 40 million children missed a measles vaccine dose out of which 25 million children missed their first dose and an additional 14.7 million children missed their second dose,” a joint publication by the WHO and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported.

The decline is a significant setback in global progress towards achieving and maintaining measles elimination and leaves millions of children susceptible to infection, the report added.