We to keep our children healthy — Kazakh PM instructs to strengthen measures to fight measles
The situation with increasing incidence of measles is off the agenda considered at the Government session chaired by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov, El.kz cites primeminister.kz.
As the Minister of Healthcare Azhar Giniyat informed, complication of situation on measles is noted in 167 countries of the world with registration of more than 415 thousand cases. More than 17 thousand cases of measles have been registered in Kazakhstan. More than 82% of them are children, most of them unvaccinated.
Cases of measles have been registered in all regions, with elevated levels in Shymkent and Almaty, Zhambyl, Almaty, Mangystau, Aktobe, Kyzylorda and Atyrau regions.
A sharp increase in morbidity has been observed since September this year due to the accumulation of children in organized collectives. As a result, the morbidity rate has doubled. In November, more than 6,000 cases of measles were registered.
As of today, more than 3.5 thousand beds for measles patients have been deployed in the country, 2375 children are under inpatient treatment. The occupancy of beds today is 59.5%, with more than 1 thousand in reserve. 30 children among those hospitalized are in intensive care units in serious condition, including 15 children under 1 year of age.
In order to stabilize the measles situation, more than 600,000 children aged 1-6 years have been routinely immunized, which is 84% of those to be vaccinated. This is in line with WHO recommendations. It is planned to cover more than 100,000 children in this age group by the end of the year.
More than 15.4 thousand people have been covered by emergency vaccination in centers. The catch-up vaccination of 63,200 previously unvaccinated children under 18 years of age has also been carried out. At the same time, taking into account that 65% of the diseased are children under 5 years of age, additional mass immunization of children under 1 year of age, as well as children from 2 to 4 years of age was started in November, 94 thousand people were covered. In total, more than 770 thousand children have been immunized this year.
Along with this, 1.5 million doses of measles vaccine have been additionally purchased. As of today, 500 thousand doses have already been received, and 1 million doses are expected to be delivered in December. In general, the effectiveness of additional immunization was proved during previous measles outbreaks in 2005, 2015 and 2019.
The Prime Minister emphasized that it is necessary to stop the increase in the incidence of the disease as soon as possible.
"Measles can have complications that negatively affect children's health. Therefore, measures should be taken not only by the health care system, it is necessary to fight by the whole society. These are our children, we must take care of them, preserve their health," Alikhan Smailov said.
He pointed out that it is possible to fight such dangerous diseases only by vaccination and instructed to strengthen the relevant work.
"The Ministry of Healthcare and akimats should intensify awareness-raising work on the need for vaccination. All akims should keep the issue of vaccination on personal control and coordinate work with the Ministry of Health," Prime Minister instructed.
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