Measles cases up by 900% in GenSan City

THE number of suspected measles cases in General Santos City or GenSan in Mindanao in southern Philippines has soared by almost 900 percent, according to a report by the epidemiology bureau of the Department of Health (DoH).

From January 1 to November 17, the DoH’s Public Health Surveillance Division recorded 129 reported cases of the contagious viral disease, which is higher by 892 percent than the figure in the same period last year.

Out of the number, 30 tested positive for measles.

The reported fatality was zero. Meanwhile, in Quezon province, the reported cases rose by 881 percent, and laboratory tests confirmed that measles cases increased by 1,300 percent,leaving one dead.

There were 14 confirmed cases out of the 265 reported ones for 2018.

Last year, out of the 27 suspected cases, only one was established as measles.

Reported measles is described as any case with fever and maculopapular (non-vesicular) rash and either cough, runny nose or conjunctivitis

(red eyes), while a laboratory confirmed measles is a suspected case that tests positive for measles- specific IgM antibodies or other approved confirmatory tests.

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that causes respiratory symptoms and a rash, but it is preventable with a vaccine.

Symptoms usually develop 10 to 12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7 to 10 days.

Health Undersecretary Rolando Domingo said in a text message that this rise in the vaccine-preventable disease was caused by “low coverage for immunization.”

Domingo added that DoH teams are doing “catch up immunization” in affected communities and “responding” to all outbreaks.

The upward trend in measles had been attributed to the lack of participation of many parents in the mass immunization program of the DoH that started when it inoculated some 890,000 schoolchildren from Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and Metro Manila with Dengvaxia without knowing if these vaccine recipients have had dengue fever.

The Dengvaxia manufacturer only released its study a year and a half after implementation, saying recipients might contract serious llness if they had not been infected with dengue before receiving Dengvaxia.