Measles outbreak in Philippines attacked 136 people, mostly children aged 1-4 years

Padly Nurdin

Thursday, Feb 21, 2019 | 11:41 am

Illustration

News24xx.com - Lately measles becomes an epidemic in the Philippines. The Philippines health secretary, Francisco Duque said on Monday, February 18th 2019, 136 people have become the victims and most of them are children aged 1-4 years, and 8,400 others fell ill. Massive immunization has been carried out since last week and expected to stop this outbreak in April.

This outbreak was allegedly due to the large number of residents who were still afraid of vaccines, which then made Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte gave a warning about the fatal complications and if children don’t get immunization. "There is nothing bad about the vaccine, your children won’t get any diseases, and no conditions from it, you only need to bring your child and believe in the vaccine ... it will save your child. This is the only solution for this outbreak" Duque said, which is quoted by Fox News.

The fear is caused by the controversy that when the Dengvaxia DHF vaccine which is made by European drug factory, Sanofi Pasteur had killed at least 3 children. So now the Philippine government's efforts are to gain back the trust of people in vaccine. Duque stated that people in Phillipines are starting to trust the vaccine again, because there is an with an increase in the injection of measles vaccines to around 130 thousand people from the target of 450 thousand people in the capital Manila in a week.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease which caused by a virus that can be spread through the mucus that people infected with, for example through coughing and sneezing, and the virus itself could live up to two hours in an air space where the infected people sneezed or coughed. Complications due to this disease itself are diarrhea, ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis or brain swelling that can cause death, according to the Philippine Ministry of Health.

News24xx.com/fik/red