YANGON- Nationwide measles and rubella vaccination program will be launched in November and December, according to sources.

The measles vaccine program kicked off in seven townships within the Yangon Region with high rates of measles breakouts from February 17 to 28th.

Townships that will receive coverage are Hlaingthaya, Insein, Mingaladon, Shwepyithar, South Dagon Myothit, East Dagon Myothit and Dagon Seikkan Townships.

“The child patients weren’t fully injected with measles vaccination. The disease mostly took place at the lack of vaccination coverage areas. Now, the measles outbreak found in Yangon, Shan and Kayin States. We are going to inject measles vaccine to the children aged nine months to 15 years in Shan and Kayin States,” said Project Manager Dr Htar Htar Lin.

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.