Mumbai A 5-month-old child from Wadala and a 21-month-old from Thane died of suspected measles on Tuesday. This took the death toll from the viral infection in the Mumbai metropolitan region to 16. Ten of these deaths have taken place in the last 15 days.
The child from Wadala suffered cardiac disease since birth, and was not immunised since he was too young to get the measles vaccine as per the universal immunisation programme. As per information shared by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), he first developed the symptoms last Wednesday.
“The baby was admitted to a civic hospital on Saturday, and was found to be suffering from conjunctivitis on admission. His condition kept worsening, and he was put on a ventilator on Monday,” said a civic official. He died of septic shock with presence of bronchopneumonia.
The baby from Thane belonged to Kausa in Mumbra locality. He died on November 27 at a civic hospital during treatment and was Identified as Arhan Khan. The baby was found to have measles-like symptoms by the civic health staff during a house-to-house survey on November 23. He had been showing the symptoms since November 17. They said they had to counsel the parents to convince them to take the baby to the civic hospital rather than a private one.
“The boy’s condition was bad when he was admitted. Till November 25, he was shifted to intensive care unit at the Shivaji Hospital. His condition deteriorated and he succumbed to the illness on November 27. The family had shifted to Kausa 11 months back from Uttar Pradesh,” said Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) commissioner Abhijit Bangar. The boy was unvaccinated, he added.
TMC claimed that it is focusing on admitting patients with symptoms at early stage to avoid deaths. As of now, they have managed 92 admissions during house-to-house survey. Meanwhile, besides Kausa, Mumbra, Shil, MM Valley and Atkeshwar, primary health centres have also reported cases of measles.
Between August and November, the TMC has collected samples of 174 suspect cases, out of which 50 cases are positive and two deaths have been reported till date.
In Mumbai, 308 cases of the viral infection have been confirmed since the first death was reported in the last week of September. Fifteen kids have been suspected to have died from the disease duirng this period in city hospitals, three of whom were from neighbouring cities.
Besides the house-to-house surveys, BMC has also intensified its vaccination drives even conducting several camps to cover all the unvaccinated children in affected areas. From December 1, they will also be implementing the Outbreak Response Immunization (ORI) in accordance with the guidelines received from the central as well as state health department. This would include administering a special dose of the measles vaccine to 1,55,131 children in age group of 9 month to 5 years and to 3,569 children in age group of 6 months to 9 months.
