Janet Ogundepo Paediatricians have warned that children who are unvaccinated, malnourished, and live in crowded environments are at a higher risk of measles. The experts also noted that children living in overcrowded areas were at increased risk of spreading and contracting the highly contagious disease caused by a virus. The child surgeons decried the recurrent measles epidemics in Nigeria, attributing them to incomplete or non-immunisation children due to several factors.
The paediatricians reassured parents that the vaccine was safe, stating that the disease’s complications, such as blindness, and kidney and liver diseases, far outweigh any fears about the vaccine. According to the World Health Organisation, measles is a highly contagious airborne disease that could lead to severe complications and deaths. It adds that although measles can affect anyone, it is most common in children and can be prevented through vaccination.
Despite the availability of vaccines, the WHO noted that about 136,000 measles deaths were recorded globally, mostly among unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children under the age of five. Recently, the WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund, noted that there has been a reduction in the vaccination rates against measles, leaving about 35 million children with partial or no protection. In 2023, the health agency reported a 79 per cent rise in measles globally and drops in the measles vaccination, warning that the disease was still a global threat.