Measles: Death review committee to confirm number of victims this week

Consisting of municipal officials, paediatricians and other experts, the committee had last met in the first week of January

Mumbai: The death review committee for measles will meet later this week to confirm the number of deaths caused by the infection. Since September 2022, only eight of the 23 deaths of children, who died while undergoing treatment, have been confirmed to be caused by measles.

“While all these deaths may have happened while the child was suffering from measles, we still need to assess whether the disease was the primary cause of death,” Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) executive health officer Dr Mangala Gomare said, adding that a few of the children, who passed away while suffering from the viral infection were younger than 6 months, which meant they were not eligible for the vaccine. (Shutterstock)

“While all these deaths may have happened while the child was suffering from measles, we still need to assess whether the disease was the primary cause of death,” Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) executive health officer Dr Mangala Gomare said, adding that a few of the children, who passed away while suffering from the viral infection were younger than 6 months, which meant they were not eligible for the vaccine.

Consisting of municipal officials, paediatricians and other experts, the committee had last met in the first week of January.

Head of the state measles task force Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who is also on the committee, said that it is a complex process to review the deaths. “We need to start with the contributory factors like the low birth weight of the child, the nutritional status of both the mother and the child and the presence of deficiencies like anaemia. Then, we need to check whether there was a delay in hospitalisation. Lastly, the treatment offered is analysed in depth,” he added.

Once the child was at the hospital, said Dr Salunkhe, the committee reviewed the treatment modality used and the entire case files were reviewed. “The aim is not to incriminate a person but to ensure the processes were free of error and to learn from our mistakes,” he said.

Dr Gomare pointed out that most of the children who died lived close to each other, with more than 50% of them being unvaccinated. “Though we have worked hard in these clusters with the help of local political and religious leaders to improve vaccine coverage, we still see a lot of vaccine hesitancy in these areas,” she added.

Despite the high rate of vaccine refusals, BMC claimed it has been able to exceed the vaccination targets set by the state. In the outbreak response immunisation (ORI) drives conducted in December and January, the civic body has covered 73.53% of all eligible children between ages 6 months to 9 months and 70.42% of children in the 9 months to 5 years age group. A special mobile immunisation drive was also organised to cover children of migrants, destitute and daily wage workers living at construction sites.