Sierra Leone declares measles outbreak

By Kemo Cham

APA-Freetown - The Sierra Leone government says it has deployed health officials in two districts in its northern flank where it has declared an outbreak of measles.

The Ministry of Health disclosed Tuesday that a total of 24 cases have been recorded since June 14 in the districts of Koinadugu and Falaba. The region is close to the border with neighboring Guinea where officials say the index case is suspected to have originated.

The area in Guinea is currently under a measles outbreak.

“The disease has quickly spread to unvaccinated children in Sierra Leone,” said Dr Alfred J Moisa, deputy director for Health Security and Emergencies at the Public Health Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Health.

“All these cases and the response are currently being managed by the Koinadugu District Health Management Team who are doing a fantastic job at that end,” he added.

Dr Moisa assured that the Health

ministry and partners were working hard to contain the disease from spreading further, noting that they’d already deployed trained surveillance officers in the communities who are embarking on contact tracing.

The government is being assisted by the World Health Organisation and Unicef, whose officials have vowed to help contain the disease.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease which mostly affects children. Also called rubeola, the disease infects the respiratory system and can spread through contact with infected mucus and saliva. An infected person can release the infection into the air when they cough or sneeze. The measles virus can live on surfaces for several hours.

But the disease is preventable by vaccine.

The UN agencies are helping the government to roll out a planned vaccination campaign in the two affected districts.

Some 1, 200 health officials will be deployed in the region to administer 2, 644 doses of the vaccine to children in the two affected districts.

Dr. Charles Njuguna, WHO Health Security Representative at the Country Office, said the UN health agency in collaboration with its sister agency UNICEF stood ready to support the Health ministry to contain the outbreak and ensure no child is left behind in the vaccination drive.

“We will be assisting the ministry in the roll out of the reactive campaign and also to ensure that there is quality in the vaccination in Koinadugu and Falaba with an end to ensure that no child is left behind when it comes to access to these critical vaccine at the moment,” he said.