Mass measles vaccinations in Indonesian tsunami zone

About 1,200 people have been vaccinated for measles in Indonesia after two children who lived near them in the tsunami-hit Aceh province became sick with the highly contagious illness, the World Health Organisation said.

Health workers were quick to inoculate the villagers because the WHO considers just one case of measles an outbreak because it can spread so rapidly.

The WHO said it finished vaccinating the villagers yesterday, three days after the first case was reported outside Aceh’s provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The second case was reported in the same area on Monday.

Dr Ronald Waldman, a public health expert working for the WHO in Banda Aceh, said the cases were unsurprising and did not raise significant concerns. There have been several measles outbreaks in the past few years because most Indonesian children have not been vaccinated.

The UN children’s agency Unicef was in the midst of a vaccination campaign for 576,000 people in Aceh and northern Sumatra island when the cases occurred.

“The first child had been sick already for some time by the time they reported it to us,” he said. “There were probably other cases since the tsunami that occurred, whether we heard about them or not, but now we have surveillance in place and we are hearing about them.”

The two cases did not occur in refugee camps, where it could spread easily. Waldman said health experts are not expecting to see further cases stemming from the two. There has been no reported wave of measles cases.