Mumbai: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has successfully vaccinated more than 80 per cent of children in the ward affected by measles within three months.
As per the data, since its start on December 1, the outbreak response immunisation (ORI) undertaken by the civic body, 1.98 lahks (85.29%) of 2.32 lakhs children were given an additional dose of MR vaccine in the age group of 9 months to 5 years. Meanwhile this year only one outbreak of measles was witnessed in the city. Health officials said the measles outbreak is under controlled across the city and they have achieved an overall target of vaccinating more than 80% of children in the ward affected with measles.
The state health department started an outbreak response immunisation drive in December last year to reach out to children who have skipped or are hesitant to take the MR vaccine. Following this each district started to look after children with the help of community health volunteers, NGOs, local corporators and priests to create awareness about the vaccine in wards who were hesitant to give a vaccine to their children.
Routine immunisation to avoid future outbreaks.
“The measles vaccination coverage in the city/state is satisfactory but there is a need of emphasising routine immunisation to avoid future outbreaks. We have achieved 80-85% of additional measles dose coverage in the outbreak health posts. We are continuing our drive on measles vaccination. Overall too, we have an 80% above coverage,” said a senior official from the civic health department.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, former Director of Health for Maharashtra who heads the task force said achieving maximum measles vaccination coverage is needed to stop the measles outbreak. "We have been regularly reviewing the vaccine coverage and surveillance in the city/state and it is satisfactory," he said.
Measles, which is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family, is a highly contagious respiratory disease. An outbreak is a cluster of at least five cases from the same area, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the BMC report, currently, there are 79 active outbreaks out of which only one active outbreak happened in 2023 that too in January. However, L Ward (Kurla) has the highest number of active outbreaks (12) followed by E Ward- Byculla (7) and PN- Malad, West (7).
"This year we saw only one outbreak in January that happened in Colaba health post. We had two positive cases. All the other active measles outbreaks were reported in December," said the BMC health official.
Mumbai has 210 health posts and every health post has a population of 60,000 to 80,000.
Since the outbreak in the M-East ward (Govandi) in October 2022, the city has seen 20 deaths out of which 12 are suspected measles deaths.
Moreover, BMC had arranged Mobile teams for the vaccination of left-out and dropout children at construction sites and nomadic sites in December. At the construction site, 92 children (81.42%) were given MRCV1 and 55 children (60.44%) were given MRCV2. At nomadic sites, 100 children (86.96%) were given MRCV1 and 48 children (85.71%) were given MRCV2.
