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NIA |
Updated: February 25, 2024 23:02 IST
Kathmandu [Nepal]February 25 (ANI): Nepal has started a vaccination drive to immunize around 5.7 million children between nine months and 15 years of age with the aim of eliminating measles and rubella.
The campaign, scheduled to last until March 20, will cover 24 districts, including 21 badly affected areas along the Indian border and three districts within the Kathmandu Valley.
In addition, children aged nine months to five years in the remaining 53 districts will also receive vaccines. The local union government has designated vaccination centres, mainly educational institutions, to facilitate the immunization drive.
“The measles and rubella vaccination campaign is a booster dose as the same dose is administered to children aged nine and fifteen months in all government hospitals and inoculation drives. This time the government plans to eradicate the measles and rubella,” said Bimlesh Mahaseth, principal of a school designated as a vaccination center in Nagarjun township.
The Ministry of Health and Population has established a total of 48,798 vaccination centers across the country to support the campaign. In addition, 49,937 health workers and 59,906 volunteers have been mobilized to ensure the proper execution of the campaign.
Measles, a highly contagious disease caused by the measles virus, is spread from person to person through airborne respiratory droplets that are dispersed within minutes when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Transmission can also occur through direct contact with infected secretions. According to experts, transmission from asymptomatic people exposed to the immune system has not been demonstrated.
The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours.
A patient is infectious from four days before the onset of the rash until four days after its appearance. The virus first infects the respiratory tract before spreading to other organs.
There is no specific antiviral treatment for measles and most people recover within 2 to 3 weeks.
In 2023, Nepal recorded a measles outbreak in the sub-metropolitan city of Nepalgunj, in Banke district, after a series of cases of fever and rash. According to a WHO situation report, a total of 690 measles cases, including one associated death, have been reported from seven districts of western Nepal and three districts of eastern Nepal.
The majority of cases (86 percent) were reported in children under 15 years of age. Although measles is endemic in Nepal and is reported every year, the magnitude and extent of the current outbreak are unusually high compared to previous years.
Since 2004, when a major outbreak of more than 12,000 cases was reported, only isolated, sporadic cases of measles have occurred.
By receiving the vaccine to fight the contagion, students in the capital have now developed confidence and protection.
“I must say that I am very happy because it is free and because of the government’s concern, I can probably feel very good now and do my job quite well,” Avesh Rana, one of the students, told ANI after receiving the vaccine. . (ME TOO)