Connect with us

Health

Measles Outbreak Recorded In Several Regions Of Philippines

Published

on

at

1:50 PM

Authorities in the Philippines have declared an outbreak of the highly contagious measles virus in several areas including the capital, Manila.

Naija News understands that the health department in the Philippines who made this known earlier today said the about 22 people died as a result of the outbreak in the Manila metropolitan area and other regions.

Dr. Duque also declared that there was an outbreak in central and southern Luzon and in central and western Visayas.

“These regions need to scale up their response against measles and have all unvaccinated children vaccinated against measles, a proven effective and safe measure to further stop its spread,” Dr. Duque said.

He said that Calabarzon – a collective name for the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon – had the highest number of measles cases at 575, including nine deaths.

In Metro Manila, meanwhile, there were five deaths, and in Luzon, there were 192 cases and four deaths.

In 2017, French firm Sanofi Pasteur disclosed that the Dengvaxia dengue vaccine posed risks to people who had not been infected before immunization. This prompted the DOH to suspend its immunization programme, which was launched by then-president Benigno Aquino III.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III blamed the high number of cases on low vaccination rates among children due to a scare trigger by a controversial government dengue vaccine programme in 2017.

The Department of Health (DOH) said on Wednesday (Feb 6) there had been 441 cases of measles in the Manila metropolitan area as of Jan 26, compared to 36 cases in 2018.

Related Topics:
Advertisement