ANTANANARIVO, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two months ago, giggles floated through the home of fisherman Dada as his four-year-old son played ball outside with his two younger cousins on one of Madagascar’s famed sun soaked beaches.
A few weeks later, all three children were dead, victims of the worst measles outbreak on the Indian Ocean island in decades.
Measles cases are on the rise globally, including in wealthy nations such as the United States and Germany, where some parents shun life-saving vaccines due to false theories suggesting links between childhood immunizations and autism.
In Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, parents are desperate to vaccinate their children, many trudging for miles to get to clinics for shots. But there are not enough vaccines, the health ministry says, and many people are too poor to afford them.
The three cousins are among the almost 1,000 people, mostly children, who have died from measles in Madagascar since October.
Their deaths show the grim reality for those left unprotected from one of the world’s most contagious diseases. The virus, which can cause blindness, pneumonia, brain swelling and death, is able to survive for up to two hours in the air after a cough or sneeze, where it can easily infect people nearby.
Even though there is a highly effective vaccine, globally, around 110,000 people died from measles in 2017, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Most, like Limberaza and his cousins, were children under the age of five.
In Madagascar, poverty is a bigger risk. While wealthy tourists flock to its rainforests to spot wide-eyed lemurs and business people bargain for its luminous sapphires and fragrant vanilla, nearly half of Madagascar’s children are malnourished, the highest rate in Africa.
The former French colony has been battered by decades of coups and instability. Foreign aid plummeted after a 2009 coup sparked bitter political street fighting. Corrupt leaders ignored the crumbling healthcare system despite frequent outbreaks of plague, hemorrhagic fevers and deadly viruses.
Measles is endemic on the island but the last vaccination drive was in 2004. Nearly two-thirds of children have not been vaccinated, according to the WHO and coverage needs to be around 95 percent to prevent the virus spreading in communities.
The country is $3 million short of the $7 million needed for enough measles vaccines to cover its population, the WHO said last month.
There are other hurdles. The vaccines must be kept cold, but less than 15 percent of people in Madagascar have electricity. Roads are mostly mud in the tropical country; journeys are arduous and expensive.
At least 922 people – mostly children – have died of measles in Madagascar since October, the WHO says, despite an emergency program that has vaccinated 2.2 million of the 26 million population so far.
Some of those, like Limberaza, had previously been vaccinated but had only received one shot, and still needed a second booster jab. Madagascar hopes to roll out a free routine two-dose vaccination program this year. Currently, the first shot is free but the booster is not. — NNN-AGENCIES