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Malappuram admin urges religious bodies to help in vaccine drive against measles
Leaders of Samastha Jemiyyathul Ulama, Jammat-e-Islami and many other outfits said they would help remove unnecessary fear and advise believers to vaccinate their children at the earliest
As measles cases continue to rise, the Malappuram district administration has started a vigorous drive to administer MR (measles and rubella) vaccine and has sought the help of many religious bodies to tide over existing taboos about vaccination, officials familiar with the developments said.
According to the state health ministry, the total number of measles cases in Malappuram rose to 470 on Thursday, and 95 per cent of infected are unvaccinated.
There are 160,000 unvaccinated children below five years of age in the district, and the administration is planning to vaccinate 10,000 children each day for the next two weeks, the officials said.
Health workers and experts from other districts have also been roped in, they added.
The worried district administration has sought the help of various religious bodies and NGOs to tide over the crisis. It also made masks mandatory in schools and anganwadis for the time being.
“We have started a vigorous immunisation drive and classified health blocks in different categories based on the spread of disease and unvaccinated persons,” said district collector V R Premkumar.
He also said strong action would be taken against those who spread fear over vaccines and mislead people.
“Almost 90% of those who tested positive haven’t taken a single dose, and five per cent just took one dose. The disease can be prevented effectively only by taking both doses of vaccine. One per cent of vaccinated also got infected due to proximity with infected, but they recovered quickly,” said district medical officer R Renuka.
Leaders of Samastha Jemiyyathul Ulama, Jammat-e-Islami and many other outfits said they would help remove unnecessary fear and advise believers to vaccinate their children at the earliest.
They also said they would conduct awareness programmes in places of worship and give public announcements. “We will help remove unnecessary fear in this regard,” said Samastha leader Latheef Faizi.
Two weeks back, the Union health ministry rushed an expert team to the district, which recommended the need to step up the universal immunisation programme.
According to officials, there is fierce resistance and mistrust for vaccinations in Muslim-dominated areas of north Kerala.
Many people easily fall prey to a vicious campaign that “vaccines were the creation of the West and believers never needed them”.
They also spread canards like “some vaccines affect the fertility of children when they grow up, and some of them also carry pork-based gelatine making it ‘haraam’ (forbidden) for believers”, the officials said.
Health experts have warned that resistance to the vaccine may result in the recurrence of some eradicated diseases. Six years ago in Malappuram, five diphtheria cases were detected, and three of them later died.
The district vaccination rate is still below 50 per cent while the rest of the state is above 90 per cent, health ministry statistics state.
Five years ago, the government made vaccination mandatory for all children during admission to schools, but results are not that encouraging, said health officials adding two-year pandemic break aggravated the situation.
