PNG mobilises to fight measles

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s Department of Health has dispatched a team to a remote part of Chimbu province where a measles outbreak has reportedly killed six people.

Although newspaper reports last week identified the border between Enga and East Sepik as an area of a deadly measles outbreak, the department has confirmed a request for help from Chimbu.

The department’s preventable diseases surveillance officer, Barry Ropa, says a significant outbreak which started in the Sepik region in 2013 spread into numerous provinces last year.

He says health authorities are hopeful that people in the remote bush will get word that the team is in their district.

“They have enough packs in the province to actually go with the vaccines into the district now for vaccination, as well as drugs for treatment for those who fall ill because of measles.

“They are mobilising more vaccines for the district so I believe they would have gone with about ten to fifteen thousand doses.”