Global Picture on Measles Elimination

Why in the news?

World Health Organization has declared that Sri Lanka has eliminated Measles.

What is Measles?

• Measles is a serious and highly contagious disease.
• It can cause debilitating or fatal complications, including encephalitis, severe diarrhoea and dehydration, pneumonia, ear infections and permanent vision loss.
• The disease is preventable through two doses of a safe and effective vaccine.
• In 2017, over 109,000 deaths occurred from measles all around the world.
• Rubella, more commonly known as German measles, can have severe consequences during pregnancy.
• An infection just before conception and in early pregnancy may result in miscarriage, foetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS).
• A woman infected with the rubella virus early in pregnancy has a 90% chance of passing the virus to the foetus.

What is the status of global measles vaccination?

• A global report by WHO says since 2000, over 21 million lives have been saved through measles immunisation.
• For several years, the global coverage with the first dose of measles vaccine has stalled at 85%.
• This is far short of the 95% needed to prevent outbreaks, and leaves many people, in many communities, susceptible to the disease.
• Second dose coverage stands at 67%.
• Globally, there are concerns about vaccination gaps that are allowing the disease to resurface in areas where it is not very common.

What is the case with Sri Lanka?

• Sri Lanka is the fifth country in WHO’s Southeast Asia region to eliminate measles.
• The other four countries are Bhutan, Maldives, DPR Korea and Timor-Leste.
• Sri Lanka’s success follows its persistent efforts to ensure maximum coverage with two doses of measles and rubella vaccines being provided in the childhood immunisation programme.
• The vaccination coverage in the country has been consistently high – over 95% with both the first and second doses provided to children under the routine immunisation programme.
• Additionally, mass vaccination campaigns with a measles-rubella vaccine have been held periodically to plug immunisation gaps, the last one in 2014.
• The country has a strong surveillance system and all vaccine-preventable diseases are an integral part of the communicable disease surveillance system.

What is the performance of India in this regard?

• India currently gives a measles rubella vaccine in its universal immunisation programme to tackle both measles and rubella.
• The latest Global Measles and Rubella Update, says India reported 47,056 measles cases and 1,263 rubella cases during April 2018- April 2019.
• India, as part of the global initiative, has targeted elimination of measles and control of rubella by 2020.
• Rubella control is achieved when a country reduces the number of rubella cases by 95% as compared to the number of cases in 2008.
• India has initiated the world’s largest Measles-Rubella (MR) Campaign targeting vaccination of 410 million children and adolescents aged between 9 months and 15 years.
• The MR campaign began in February 2017, and as of November 2018, 135 million children have been vaccinated in 28 states/UTs.
• Under the programme, two doses of measles and rubella vaccines are to be given at ages 9-12 months and 16-24 months.

Source: Indian Express