Two young children in HCMC’s Binh Tan District contracted measles without being vaccinated against this disease. One child must be monitored at a hospital’s Intensive Care Department.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health yesterday afternoon said it had recorded two cases of measles, both living in Binh Tan District.
The first case is a 13-month-old girl in Binh Hung Hoa B Ward. On May 20, the child was admitted to the City Children's Hospital after she experienced a fever in six days, runny nose, scattered rashes all over the body, red conjunctiva, swollen eyelids, and sore throat. Through examination and testing, the child was diagnosed with measles complicated by pneumonia. Currently, the patient is awake and her conjunctiva condition has been better.
Elsewhere in the city, a 15-month-old boy in Tan Tao Ward was admitted to the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City on May 24 because of a fever on the fourth day, runny nose, cough with phlegm, loose diarrhea, and scattered erythema in the ears, eyes, and body. Medical workers diagnosed the child with measles and superinfected pneumonia and is being monitored and treated at the Intensive Care Department.
Currently, the patient still has a high fever, increased cough and phlegm, and is using a nasal cannula to breathe oxygen.
According to their parents, both children had not been vaccinated against measles because they were often sick and their parents worked far away so they could not take them to medical clinics for vaccination.
Immediately after recording the information, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health directed the City Center for Disease Control to coordinate with Binh Tan District Medical Center to investigate epidemiology and deploy epidemic prevention measures in the community. Currently, no relationship has been discovered between the two pediatric patients and no new cases have been discovered temporarily.
According to the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the interruption of vaccine supply under the National Expanded Program on Immunization in 2022 have affected the city’s vaccination rate. Many children have not been vaccinated on schedule or have not received enough vaccinations.
From the beginning of 2023, when vaccine supply begins to return, Ho Chi Minh City will implement a plan to make up shots for unvaccinated children. After that, mass vaccination will be deployed at health stations in 2024 when the supply of vaccines in the program becomes stable.
By the end of April, the rate of 18-month-old children vaccinated with two measles shots for children born in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 was 93.2 percent, 90.1 percent, 91.7 percent and 93.6 percent respectively. This coverage rate meets the minimum target required by the Ministry of Health but does not meet the target of Ho Chi Minh City (over 95 percent). 95 percent is the necessary coverage level to create community immunity to prevent disease outbreaks and achieve the goal of measles elimination and rubella control.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health calls on parents to take their children to health stations for vaccination. Children will be vaccinated for free with two doses of measles vaccine at 9 months and 18 months of age in the expanded vaccination program at health stations. In addition, other toddlers should also be taken to healthcare facilities to receive advice on measles vaccination.
Medical workers advised people to follow measures to prevent measles including maintaining personal hygiene, washing hands regularly and keeping the house clean, having a healthy diet, and limiting contact with people with suspected measles symptoms such as fever, rash and respiratory inflammation (cough, runny nose).
Moreover, when a person has symptoms of a measles-like rash, they should immediately go to a medical facility for timely examination and treatment.
Also yesterday afternoon, the City Children's Hospital revealed that its doctors have successfully treated a 3-year-old child with severe pneumonia caused by influenza A/H1.
