{"id":5835,"date":"2019-10-09T09:54:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T06:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5835"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","slug":"outbreaks-of-measles-compounding-challenges-in-the-drc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/09\/outbreaks-of-measles-compounding-challenges-in-the-drc\/","title":{"rendered":"Outbreaks of Measles: Compounding Challenges in The DRC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Matthew\nFerrari<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An outbreak of measles that began in early 2019 in the\nsoutheast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has now spread\nto all 26 provinces. Over 180,000 cases and more than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/over-3-000-killed-by-deadly-virus-in-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-this-year-and-its-not-ebola-123220\">3,000\ndeaths<\/a>&nbsp;have been reported. The outbreak has disproportionately\naffected young children under five years of age. Similar outbreaks occurred\npreviously in the DRC in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4105555\/\">2011<\/a>&nbsp;and\nagain in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(15)00115-4\/fulltext\">2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the largest and most fatal of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/globalhealth\/measles\/globalmeaslesoutbreaks.htm\">large\nmeasles outbreaks<\/a>&nbsp;across the world this year. These have occurred in\nthe Ukraine, Philippines, Brazil, US, New Zealand, Madagascar and Nigeria.\nWhile the details of each individual outbreak vary, the root cause of measles\noutbreaks is always the same: too few children receive timely and effective\nvaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The outbreak in the DRC highlights all of the various\ncauses for episodic measles outbreaks. The delivery of measles vaccine in\nendemic areas must contend with a biological catch-22. From birth to about nine\nmonths of age, most infants have maternal antibodies that protect them from\nmeasles infection. But these antibodies also prevent the measles vaccine from\nconferring lifelong immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those children whose maternal immunity wears off early\nare at risk of infection at an age when measles infection can be most severe.\nThus, health systems in endemic regions, like the DRC, employ a first dose at a\nrelatively early age (nine months) to immunise these vulnerable children. Later\nthey provide a second dose to catch those for whom the first dose didn\u2019t\nprovide protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The weak spot of this strategy is the accessibility of\nroutine preventive health services. In the DRC, as in many underfunded health\nsystems, many families cannot routinely access timely preventive services. This\ncan be because they live too far from clinics, or because clinics are in bad\nshape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To combat limited vaccination access, the DRC conducts\nperiodic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/immunization\/diseases\/measles\/en\/\">\u201csupplemental\nvaccination activities\u201d<\/a>. These are large, coordinated efforts to bring\nsecond dose opportunities into every community, vaccinating all children under\nfive years of age, regardless of prior vaccination. The expense and logistics\nof these massive efforts means that they can only be conducted every few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/outbreaks-of-measles-compounding-challenges-in-the-drc-124660\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Matthew Ferrari An outbreak of measles that began in early 2019 in the southeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has now spread to all 26&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}