Age of measles vac to change to six months

A newborn gets vaccinated at the HCM City Preventive Health Centre.-VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hai

If approved, the proposal will be implemented in the fourth quarter of this year.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said that lowering the age would help Vietnam eradicate measles by 2020.

Long urged families to vaccinate their children on schedule, while the ministry was aiming for ensuring vaccination coverage of over 95 per cent.

Measles reportedly occurs mostly in winter and spring, but outbreaks of the disease have been on the rise this summer.

According to a report from the Ministry of Health, Hanoi currently has the highest number of measles cases. Notably, children under nine months old who had not been vaccinated were among the reported cases.

Hoang Duc Hanh, deputy director of Hanoi’s Department of Health, has asked the Hanoi Preventive Medicine Centre, along with the city’s districts and communes, to monitor the disease to prevent an outbreak.

Van, mother of a 2-year-old boy in Hanoi, told Vietnam News that safe vaccines were more important than when her baby was vaccinated.

Deputy director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Tran Nhu Duong, said the reason children in Vietnam receive their first measles vaccine at nine months old is because they are protected by antibodies in breast milk.

However, a recent clinical trial in Hai Duong Province showed that more than 92 per cent of children aged from six to eight months were not carrying those antibodies.

According to a report by the Ministry of Health, in the first five months of this year, 354 cases of measles were recorded in 25 out of 63 provinces and cities, against the country’s total figure of 300 cases in 2017.

“Following the four-year cycle, Vietnam must be vigilant about the possibility of a measles epidemic returning this year, especially in the northern region,” Duong said, adding that measles was one of the most readily transmitted communicable diseases.

“One person with measles can infect up to 20 others,” he said.

According to the latest report, more than 32,600 children had not been vaccinated against the disease over the past five years. The last outbreak of measles in the city occurred in 2014 with 1,700 cases, and claimed the lives of more than 100 children.