[Dawn] Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed on Tuesday sought to deflect criticism of the health ministry's handling of measles outbreak that caused hundreds of deaths over the past couple of months by blaming misreporting of the toll and citing other reasons such as malnutrition, pneumonia and diarrhea for it.The minister also called for supervision of private bodies and non-governmental organisations associated with vaccination activities.
Since its outbreak, measles deaths were no more than 219, including 138 deaths of children, by Feb 12 in eight badly hit districts of upper Sindh, asserted Dr Ahmed while responding to the criticism the ministry drew over measles deaths during the assembly session.
In December when the disease broke out there were 93 deaths in Sukkur, Khairpur, Larkana, Kambar-Shahdadkot, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Ghotki and Kashmore districts, followed by 36 in January and nine deaths were reported this month, he said, adding that a total of 81 deaths were recorded in Karachi, Thatta , Badin, Sanghar and Dadu districts.
"These figures were not from my department but collected from the relief and revenue departments and DEWS, WHO wing of disease early warning response system," he said. The minister claimed that the falling rate of death figures was the outcome of expeditious efforts to vaccinate children against the disease, measures taken for creating awareness, precaution and routine immunisation.
However, he said, the team he was given was not of his choice. If the team was not prepared to work, it was difficult to go along and he had to remove some of the EDOs, DHOs and supervisors for the purpose, Dr Ahmad said.
Referring to the speeches earlier delivered in the house, the minister said that exaggerated figures and misreporting of deaths from vaccination were not going to help in any way.
He said that deaths of children were caused not only by measles but also by malnutrition, pneumonia and diarrhoa.
He also tried to justify the role of his department in controlling the disease when he said the vaccine being used for routine immunization to children were the same as being used to check measles provided by the donor countries, Unicef and WHO.
He added that measles were not restricted to Sindh but Punjab, Balochistan and Pakhtunkhwa also remained in its grip.