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September 20, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Zimbabwe: Measles Push Accelerated Because of Fears of an Epidemic" Africa News Service (www.allafrica.com) (09/19/02)

Due to the risk of a measles outbreak among malnourished children in Zimbabwe, a rush immunization campaign conducted by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and World Health Organization managed to vaccinate 1.5 million children against the disease.  According to officials, the effort was accelerated because of the high rates of malnutrition in the country.  "An epidemic of measles in these circumstances would have been particularly devastating, and could easily have led to increased child deaths," said Dr. Festo Kavishe, the UNICEF representative in Zimbabwe.  The campaign reached 85 percent of Zimbabwe's children between the ages of nine months and five years of age, officials said.

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