Tackling measles, rubella

Anil Sud
Consultant paediatrician, Jalandhar

After conquering smallpox, polio, yaws and maternal and neonatal tetanus, India is marching ahead with the launch of its MR campaign. The MR campaign is to target measles and rubella viruses and stop their transmission in order to eradicate measles and rubella from India before 2020.

Measles is a major killer disease, with 49,000 children losing their life every year to it. The morbidity due to measles infection is also of a great proportion, with 2.7 million children in India suffering from measles and many of them developing pneumonia, diarrhea, malnutrition and central nervous system symptoms.

Rubella, on the other hand, can cause serious defects in the newborn baby if the mother gets infected during pregnancy. It can lead to stillbirths, miscarriages, cataract, blindness, deafness and congenital heart disease. About 40,000 children get congenital rubella syndrome every year. 

India has made important gains against measles in the past decade due to its unflinching efforts by improving measles immunisation coverage and thereby reducing measles mortality from 1,00,000 in 2010 to 49,000 in 2015.

This MR campaign started in 2017 and it aims to vaccinate 410 million children across the country in the age group of 9 months to 15 years over a period of two years. It shows the commitment to make India free from vaccine preventable diseases. 

The campaign has been started in phases and in Punjab it started on May 1. MR vaccination will be done by health workers who are trained for the purpose. Vaccination will be done in all the schools, health centres and state government health institutions and by anganwadi workers all over the state.

For the MR campaign to be effective, it is important that no child is left behind during the campaign and routine immunisation coverage is improved to make the coverage 100 per cent. 

The WHO has termed this campaign as a big step towards reducing childhood mortality and incidence of birth defects.

Advantages of MR vaccine

• The vaccine is safe. The western world eliminated measles in 2002 and rubella in 2009 through the same vaccine and a similar type of campaign.
• Children who have received routine immunisation with measles or MR vaccine are also supposed to be vaccinated.
• After receiving MR vaccine, the remaining routine immunisation has to be followed according to the schedule.
• Children with any minor illnesses are also to be given the vaccine during the campaign. Only seriously ill children, children suffering from cancer and kidney disease, children on steroids, history of allergy to measles or MMR vaccine should not be given the vaccine.