To prevent measles and rubella in Mumbai, the state government on Thursday established a special task force for measles and began administering an additional dose of vaccine. Measles vaccinations are given twice, once at nine months and once at sixteen months postpartum.
Pune: Dr. Subhash Salunkhe, the director of the 11-person task force established by the state to address the measles outbreak, said that, like Covid, the measles outbreak in the state and the nation was on the verge of becoming a public health emergency.
“It is necessary to implement the guidelines created for Covid-19 for measles right away. All departments should collaborate effectively, much like Covid,” Dr. Subhash added
“The state needs to increase measles vaccination rates to 95%. It is low in a number of places, especially in urban slums. In order for parents to come forward and get their children immunised, community mobilisation needs to be focused on developing an effective communication strategy,” said Dr. Salunkhe.
To prevent measles and rubella in Mumbai, the state government on Thursday established a special task force for measles and began administering an additional dose of vaccine. The measles vaccine is administered twice, once at nine months and once at sixteen months after birth.
The state has reported 93 outbreaks and a total of 807 cases. For the record, a measles outbreak is considered to exist when five points or more are written in a given area.
Pimpri Chinchwad has so far been associated with eight cases of measles. No case has yet been reported within the city limits of Pune.
According to Dr. Kapil Aher, Deputy Director (Nashik region) of the state health department, measles cases were reported in Shirpur town in the Dhule District of North Maharashtra after Malegaon. He claimed that in Shirpur, four children, in the age group from seven months to seven years, had tested positive for the illness. While one child receives treatment at the neighbourhood government hospital, three of them have been cured.
According to experts, there have been warnings that stopping routine immunizations runs the risk of a measles outbreak. Because of a lack of health workers in the early months of Covid, measles vaccination campaigns had to be suspended in more than 20 countries.
