By Sylvia Chebet
A measles crisis is mounting in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, as health authorities continue to battle an outbreak of yellow fever.
More than 12,000 measles cases have been recorded so far this year in the country, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
"We went to Western Equatoria to support the intervention in yellow fever outbreak. However, we started seeing so many cases of measles coming to those facilities, and therefore we had to start supporting measles cases as well," MSF head of mission Zakaria Mwatia told TRT Afrika.
"In a span of one week we have already seen more than 460 cases of measles," he adds.
The head of mission explaining that MSF has had to double the bed capacity in some of three facilities to manage the influx of patients.
Since February, 7 deaths from measles among children under-five have been recorded, MSF said. It discovered that about 90% of the infected children have never been vaccinated against the disease.
The international medical organisation is now urging health authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) to launch an immediate vaccination campaign to prevent the disease from spreading further.
“When my child fell sick, he was having high fever, diarrhoea and cough. While at home, I gave him Paracetamol but there was no improvement. We then brought him to the MSF facility where he received treatment for three days," Victoria John, mother of one-and-a-half-year-old Mark Emmanuel suffering from measles said.
"If I didn’t come to the facility, I know my child was going to die,’’
However, this isn't an isolated event. Measles has become a persistent emergency in South Sudan, with recurring outbreaks straining the fledgling healthcare system and putting communities at risk.
With over 12,000 cases recorded this year alone, immediate action is crucial.
Beyond the facilities, MSF medical teams are also going into the communities to pick out children with measles symptoms and refer them to health facilities.
The organisation noted that 20% of children treated for measles were over the age of five, highlighting the need for a reactive vaccination campaign to reach this group of older children who did not receive measles vaccinations as part of the existing expanded immunisation programme (EPI).
The measles outbreak is a double blow for a region still struggling to deal with yellow fever after the most recent outbreak – the fourth in just six years – was declared by health authorities in December 2023.
As of mid-March, 81 cases of yellow fever were detected. Three have been confirmed and six deaths recorded.
South Sudan's Ministry of Health, in collaboration with WHO immunised around 357,000 people in a massive campaign across three counties of Western Equatoria state.
It resulted in a reduction in numbers of suspected and confirmed cases, which experts say is a testament to the efficacy of mass vaccination campaigns.
“Large-scale vaccination campaigns are vital, both in Western Equatoria state and Northern Bahr el Ghazal state where the current measles outbreaks are ongoing, to halt further spread of the disease and prevent any more outbreaks. South Sudan’s fragile health system cannot bear the burden of recurrent outbreaks,” MSF's Zakaria Mwatia noted.
Given the gravity of the health threats posed by both measles and yellow fever, community awareness and additional preventive measures is crucial to contain them.
“It is imperative that the Ministry of Health and other health organisations, including WHO, intensify their efforts to expand vaccination coverage across the country and especially those areas most prone to disease outbreaks,” MSF head of mission Zakaria Mwatia urged.
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