Meghalaya battles recurrent outbreaks of measles, vaccine refusal

Shillong, Sept 26: Meghalaya has recorded over 214 measles cases in 11 outbreaks from January to August, this year. This was informed by the State Immunization Officer, Dr Badira Mawlong, during an interaction with media persons on Thursday.

“This is really a concern for our state because there are many refusals for measles vaccination,” she said.

“Sometimes they take only the first dose (of vaccination) and they miss the second dose. Especially in our community, they believe measles to be “Niang Blei” and that we should not disturb the child. (But in fact) the immunity of the child will be low during that time and bacteria will take the opportunity to attack the child and mostly, children used to die due to pneumonia, diarrhea and fever,” Dr Mawlong said.

“Also, when we have children with fever and rashes and we need to collect the blood samples but again these parents they used to deny, they said we cannot disturb the child, so this is also really a concern,” she said.

According to her, there are also many cases of blindness due to measles.

“I really want to request all of you to help us in this awareness on measles. We know that it is called ‘niang blei’ but even then if they get vaccination, they wouldn’t get measles anymore and if they get also, they will get the mild ones which will not kill the child. Even if the child is sick with fever and rashes also, if they can give the samples, we can know whether it is measles or not. If it is measles also, they can accept medication and any line of treatment that we are giving,” she said.

Dr Mawlong also cited superstitious and religious movements as reasons for refusals towards medication and vaccination.

“But there are some people who also refuse without any reasons as they are scared of getting fever after taking vaccination,” she said.

NHM Director Ram Kumar said 90 per cent of the population have now accepted immunization. “We have improved our surveillance activities in the last one and half years so the number of cases have also tripled up from 80 plus last year to 214 cases now,” he said.

“We have to ensure there is no break in the vaccination. There are two doses. 95% chances they will not get measles after the vaccination. Rashes and fever etc should be reported immediately as they need to be treated immediately,” he added.

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