Measles vaccination programme begins in Sitakunda villages

The health authorities have started the vaccination programme for measles in three unions in Sitakunda in Chittagong, which recently hit the national headlines after deaths of several children from an ‘unknown diseases'.

Chittagong Bureaubdnews24.com
Published : 29 July 2017, 04:36 PM
Updated : 29 July 2017, 04:36 PM

Health officials later identified that they died from measles.

Civil Surgeon of Chittagong Md Azizur Rahman inaugurated the vaccination at Tripura village, the worst affected village by the disease.

​On the first day of the weeklong programme​,​ around 12,000 students in 15 educational institutions have been vaccinated.

The areas being covered by the programme include Purashava no.3, Kumira and Sonaichari unions.

The measles symptoms became visible among a group of children in the areas late last month, but the parents did not take their children to the doctors​ ​as they were not aware of the disease.

As a result, until last Wednesday, nine children died from the disease. When the situation came to the authorities’ notice, 46 kids were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH), but one of them failed to recover.

Chittagong Civil Surgeon Azizur told bdnews24.com that some 46,145 children between the age of six months to 15 years would be brought under the vaccination programme in a week.

“They will develop immunity to fight the disease after the vaccination,” he said adding “it takes two to three weeks to get fully adjusted to the body.”