HARARE The United Nations (UN) Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has released US$5.6 million to fight the spread of measles which has been on the rise since the beginning of the outbreak in Zimbabwe in September 2009.
The fund is expected to benefit about five million children in the southern African nation. The CERF contribution will allow for urgent programmes to immunise children against this deadly disease. Halting the spread of measles now should avert a number of preventable deaths, UN Emergency Relief coordinator John Holmes said last week. In spite of an initial response which included vaccination of more than 148 000 children in 23 districts since the beginning of the outbreak last year, the incidence of measles has been on the rise and more than 6 200 cumulative cases, including 384 fatalities, have now been reported in 57 out of 62 districts across Zimbabwe.
The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) plan to immunise 95 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 14 years in Zimbabwe during a ten-day, nationwide campaign. Measles is an infection caused by a virus and mainly affects children under five years of age. The disease that can be prevented through vaccination, was mainly confined to families of some religious groups whose followers refuse conventional medical treatment but has since spread to more areas countrywide. The government has said it was working on a law which would make it compulsory for children to be immunised to prevent parents from resisting immunisation of children on religious or cultural grounds.
Zimbabwes health system was once one of the best in Africa but collapsed as a severe recession over the past decade meant the government was unable to build new hospitals or maintain existing ones, while poor salaries drove the best trained doctors and nurses abroad where pay and working conditions are better. The measles outbreak came barely a year after a cholera epidemic described by the WHO as the worst in Africa in more than 15 years claimed close to 5 000 lives as bankruptcy local authorities failed to supply clean drinking water to residents or provide garbage collection services. The cholera epidemic was only brought under control after international aid agencies moved in with water treatment chemicals as well as medicines and health support staff to treat the disease.
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