Two cases of measles confirmed

Two cases of measles confirmed

Associated Press, Banda Aceh

Health workers on tsunami-hit Sumatra island have started have
started vaccinating more than 1,000 people to head off the spread
of the measles, after two unconnected cases of the virus were
discovered.

The cases occurred in separate villages outside the province
capital Banda Aceh, the area hit hardest by the Dec. 26
earthquake and tsunami, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO), which considers just one case of measles an
outbreak because it is so contagious.

"Two cases have been reported in two separate villages," Moira
Connolly, who tracks outbreaks for WHO, said Monday.

The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, already was in the midst
of a campaign to vaccinate 600,000 people in devastated Sumatra
against the disease when the cases occurred, and it immediately
inoculated a ring of 1,200 people living around the villages
where each case was confirmed.

Measles is one of the most contagious viruses. In the
developing world, it kills between 3 percent and 5 percent of
children who contract it.

Malnutrition in refugee camps has been known to push the death
rate as high as 30 percent, Connolly said. But malnutrition is
not considered an issue yet among tsunami survivors.

WHO recommends immunizing more than 90 percent of children to
protect the population from outbreaks.

In Aceh, only about 25 percent of the children were vaccinated
before the earthquake, said Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's
representative in Indonesia. As aid agencies flooded into the
province in the wake of the tsunami, mass measles vaccination was
a high priority from the beginning.

Overcrowded refugee camps provide opportunities for the virus
to spread out of control.