The measles vaccine program kicked off on February 17 in seven townships with high rates of measle breakouts.

The coverage townships are Hlaingthaya, Insein, Mingaladon, Shwepyithar, South Dagon Myothit, East Dagon Myothit and Dagon Seikkan Townships.

Ministry of Health and Sports will inject measles vaccine to nearly 600,000 children aged nine months to 15 years from February 17 and 28.

Deputy Director of Ministry of Health and Sports Dr. Htar Htar Lin, the project manager of the Extended Immunization Program said: “The ministry will inject measles and rubella vaccine to all children aged nine months to 15 years from February 17 and 28. The number of measles cases has increased in the globe. The measles vaccine program launched in 1987 in Myanmar. Until 1997, the coverage area is not higher than 50 per cent. Until now, the coverage area does not exceed 90 per cent. In general, all people aged from 20 to above 30 are likely to be infected with measles in Myanmar.”

Myanmar has been carrying out the collective immunization against measles and rubella since 2015. Since 2018, the spread of measles have been reported around the globe with measle outbreaks found early in Yangon, Shan and Kayin where there was lacking coverage of regular and collective immunization. Especially, the spread of measles in the regions and states with the higher populations is epidemic as there  is full coverage.

Last year, there were 1,276 measles patients nationwide. A total of 646 cases (accounting for 50 per cent of the nationwide cases) were reported in Yangon Region and 75 per cent of patients were below 15 years. It is because the coverage of the regular immunization program hit less than 90 per cent every year  and the coverage of collective immunization program in 2017, 85 per cent.