Measles a key concern in tsunami-hit Aceh - WHO

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Preventing a widespread measles outbreak is a top priority in tsunami-stricken Aceh province, with other health concerns centred on water-and insect-borne diseases, World Health Organisation officials said on Friday.

“The only outbreak which we could be talking about is of the measles among some young children,” World Health Organisation (WHO) spokeswoman Petra Heitkamp said at a news conference with other U.N. organisations in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, when asked about major immediate health risks and the danger of epidemic disease.

The Dec. 26 Indian Ocean earthquake and the tsunami it triggered left at least 121,000 dead in Indonesia, almost all of them in Aceh.

More than 400,000 were displaced from their homes, with many living in crowded and unsanitary conditions in camps or with friends and relatives.

The circumstances sparked fears diseases like cholera or malaria could become epidemic and kill many thousands more, but a massive outpouring of aid and medical help has so far prevented that.

But there have been scattered reports of measles, and Michelle Gayer, who coordinates WHO’s surveillance of epidemiological data in Aceh, said in one district in northern Aceh an outbreak of close to 30 cases has been reported.

“Our fear is because it’s an infectious disease it can spread to other areas,” she told Reuters.

She said estimates of immunisation levels for measles in Aceh, located on Sumatra’s northern tip, run at around 70 percent, while at least 90 to 95 percent is needed to effectively prevent the disease’s spread.

Heitkamp said WHO was “actively collaborating with UNICEF for a second phase of an intensified immunisation campaign for measles” in the first week of March.

Other areas of concern include fighting water-borne diseases through improving water quality and sanitation, and battling mosquito-spread diseases like malaria and dengue fever by the distribution of thousands of mosquito nets.

Separately, the Indonesian government reported on Friday that 705 bodies of tsunami victims had been recovered the previous day, bringing the total to 121,219. Another 114,897 are listed as missing.

The World Food Program issued a report this week which put the number of dead at more than 230,000, but WFP spokesman Inigo Alvarez told Reuters the figure was not a current one and possibly came from combining confirmed dead with the number of missing. 

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