New Immunization Drive Targets Measles, Hepa B
WHO eyes to replicate victory over polio
By P. Parameswaran
Agence France Presse
MANILA
Three years after the poliovirus was eradicated in East Asia and the Pacific, health officials are training their guns at two other equally dangerous diseases-measles and hepatitis B.
They are entering the battle against the two dreaded diseases through a more determined immunization campaign among children.
The infant immunization strategy was so successful against polio that in October 2000, the World Health Organization declared the region free of this serious infectious disease of the nerves in the spine.
"After polio, measles and hepatitis B will be given more prominence in the region's immunization strategy," said Shigeru Omi, the regional director of WHO's Western Pacific office in Manila.
"This is the new challenge in our immunization campaign covering children," he said in conjunction with the celebration of World Health Day on April 7, which this year is dedicated to "Healthy Environments for Children."
Omi said measles and hepatitis B posed a "tremendous burden" in the Western Pacific region, which covers 37 countries including Australia, Brunei, China, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Measles remains the greatest single cause of death among children, apart from diarrheal diseases. Attacking mainly children under five years, it is a highly contagious viral infection and spreads primarily by large respiratory droplets. Infants under one year of age have the highest fatality rates.
Hepatitis B is a viral infection of the liver. Dubbed the "silent killer," those chronically infected later in life usually die from cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Measles, on the other hand, remains a "major preventable cause of death and disability" in Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines. Thirty to 40 million measles cases and 777,000 deaths occur each year around the world.
Even in industrialized Japan, measles kills up to 80 people a year while in Southeast Asia, fatal cases can reach up to 70,000, researchers say.
A huge challenge is to increase the rate of immunization. But health workers say there is opposition to measles vaccine on religious and cultural grounds, as well as fears of adverse side effects.
Immunization against measles is also not as simple as for polio, for which the vaccine may be given orally.
Measles immunization is done using needles and syringes and "you need to train people, and safety is very important," Omi said.
He stressed that consistently high immunization coverage was vital to check the spread of both measles and hepatitis B.
WHO says hepatitis B claims 800 to 1,000 deaths every day in the Western Pacific region, where almost all countries have "moderate to high" rates of chronic infection of the disease.
According to Omi, countries in the region are being urged to establish protection systems against hepatitis B among 80 percent of children by 2004.
Since the end of 2001, all national immunization programs in the region had covered hepatitis B, a concern largely in China, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines. Hepatitis B vaccine can protect up to 95 percent of infants but a dose within 24 hours of birth is needed for greatest efficacy.
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