Parents who already lost two children, hold their kids who are suffering from measles in Salephat village in district Sukkar in Pakistan on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. – Photo by AP

The outbreak of measles in Sindh, which has killed 210 children (more than half in the last three months of 2012), have prompted calls from health experts to look into the inefficient state vaccination machinery.

Calling it an epidemic, with very few under five getting measles shots, paediatrician Dr D.S. Akram, who works extensively in Sindh’s interior through HELP, a non-governmental organisation, said the deaths due to measles was a reflection of the gross “mismanagement” that exists in the government-run routine immunisation for children.

“Pakistan’s routine immunisation coverage is close to 65 per cent with only some important cities of Punjab recording a better performance,” said the World Health Orgnaistaion’s representative in Pakistan, Dr Guido Sabatinelli. According to the global health agency, the huge difference in routine immunisation coverage between the provinces, districts and cities was at the root of the current measles outbreak.

A contagious respiratory infection, caused by a virus, measles can cause lifelong disabilities and include brain damage and blindness. A small number of unvaccinated children can pose a danger to thousands of children.

It was a leading killer of children globally accounting for over 40 per cent of the 4.1 million annual deaths in 2002. But as a result of major national immunisation drives, worldwide measles deaths fell from 871,000 in 1999 to an estimated 454,000 in 2004, a dramatic plunge of 48 per cent.

However, in developing countries, it still remains a major killer, though it doesn’t have to be. To ward off the disease all it takes is two doses of an inexpensive, safe and available measles vaccine available since 1960.

Akram blamed the low coverage of routine immunisation in northern Sindh for the outbreak and warned that the disease was spreading in the urban metropolis of Karachi as well where routine immunisation coverage was reportedly as low as 55 per cent. In Sindh’s interior it stands at a dismal 22 to 25 per cent.

Officially the figure for Sindh is stated to be over 80 per cent, which Dr Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, founding chair of women and child health at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, says is nothing but humbug. “If the coverage had been this high, so many deaths due to measles would not have occurred,” he pointed out.

GAVI Alliance has been assisting Pakistan since 2001 in increasing access to and strengthening the routine immunisation system.

Bhutta said the government figures were inaccurate as surveys led by several investigators from AKU in Karachi and nationally had given a “completely different picture”, which is now being acknowledged by all concerned.

“A national immunisation coverage survey conducted in 2011 and which included not just verbal reports and documentation of immunisation cards but also blood testing (for tetanus and measles) showed that only 50 to 55 per cent of infants were protected using antibodies,” said Bhutta. He warned the dismal vaccination coverage foretells that “an evolving disaster is waiting to happen”.

According to Bhutta, a member of the independent expert review group for maternal and child health for the United Nations Secretary-General, countries in South Asia like Bangladesh, Nepal and India have largely eradicated measles. “Even Afghanistan has not seen any major measles outbreaks recently. Are we now to be placed at par with the worst sub-Saharan African countries, as many countries in Africa have dramatically reduced measles mortality?” he wondered aloud.

The same was corroborated by Qadir Baksh Abbasi, the focal person for measles in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation.

“It is the responsibility of the provinces after the devolution. However, as a parent body, the centre provided the vaccine and all logistical support to Sindh back in 2010 -2011, but the province never bothered to inoculate the children. Did anyone ask where did all the vaccine go? So much money was spent, all to naught!” he said adding: “We can only request them to get their act together by showing them figures and facts; we cannot dictate them or take them to task!”