Somalia: Measles Takes its Toll

Measles is sweeping unchecked through parts of southern Somalia. The disease is highly contagious and unvaccinated children are at great risk, especially if they are also malnourished. The war in southern Somalia is a key factor contributing to ongoing widespread malnutrition, low vaccination coverage, and lack of access to health care services. All of these factors aggravate the spread and severity of diseases like measles.

In some Doctors Without Borders programs, the number of measles cases has sharply increased in recent days and weeks. Many patients arrive in severe condition.

“Over the last weeks, we diagnosed and treated over 300 patients for measles—mainly children—in the towns of Haramka and Marere in Lower Juba Valley,” said Silvia Colona, Doctors Without Borders’s project coordinator for southern Somalia. “We also set up a measles treatment unit in the city of Kismayo last week, and it filled up immediately with critically ill children.”

Somalia 2011 © Martina Bacigalupo
A four-year-old boy suffering from measles and malnutrition waits for his medicine in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu.