KARACHI: The risk, along with cases, of measles and pneumonia has been steadily increasing in interior and urban areas of Sindh.
The Pakistan Paediatric Association have warned authorities that if an anti-measles drive was not started at the earliest, the disease could potentially spread and turn into an epidemic, as a significant proportion of areas in Karachi were affected by measles.
Although incidences of measles outbreak occur every now and then in the region, no programme has been carried out in the past year in interior Sindh or Karachi to immunise and vaccinate children against the disease.
Paediatricians and physicians had earlier blamed the Sindh Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) for the measles outbreak in Karachi and the rest of the province.
One doctor informed that the issue had occurred when EPI did not carry out a second vaccination drive that was necessary since children were supposed to get booster injections so that the process of immunisation could be completed in their bodies.
Measles has been said to be the leading cause of death among children across the globe.
