Without vaccine, hundreds of children die in Madagascar measles outbreak
ANTANANARIVO - Two months ago, giggles floated through the home of fisherman Dada as his four-year-old son played outside on one of Madagascar’s famed sun soaked beaches. A few weeks later, the child was dead, victims of the worst measles outbreak on the Indian Ocean island in decades. In Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, parents are desperate to vaccinate their children, many trudging for miles to get to clinics for shots. But there are not enough vaccines, the health ministry says, and many people are too poor to afford them. Fisherman Dada – like many Malagasy, he only uses one name – had taken his son Limberaza to be vaccinated once already in their home in the southern district of Fort Dauphin. But a second-dose booster shot cost $15 at a clinic - and the whole family survives on less than $2 a day - so he took the boy to a back-street doctor instead. “I could not afford to take him to the hospital,” Dada said quietly as his young wife silently held Limberaza’s twoyear-old brother. In January, Limberaza began to cough. A rash followed. After a week, he died, his body afire with fever.
Almost 1,000 people, mostly children, have died from measles in Madagascar since October. Their deaths show the grim reality for those left unprotected from one of the world’s most contagious diseases. The virus, which can cause blindness, pneumonia, brain swelling and death, is able to survive for up to two hours in the air after a cough or sneeze, where it can easily infect people nearby. During 2000 to 2017, the WHO estimates that widespread use of measles vaccinations prevented 21.1 million deaths - making the shots one of what the United Nations’ health agency calls the “best buys in public health.” Yet misinformation is knocking confidence in the safety of vaccinations and has jeopardized progress against measles - allowing the disease to gain a hold again in places where it was considered almost beaten. (Reuters)