Mass vaccinations for children in typhoon-hit Philippines

Terra Daily via AFP: A mass vaccination programme has been launched in Philippine communities that were devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan to protect children against measles and polio, UN agencies said Wednesday.

The campaign began this week with 30,000 children being vaccinated in Tacloban city, one of the places hardest hit when Haiyan claimed thousands of lives nearly three weeks ago, the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF and World Health Organisation said.

"The children of Tacloban need all the protection they can get right now," UNICEF emergency response coordinator Angela Kearney said in a joint statement by the agencies. "Disease is a silent predator, but we know how to prevent it and we will do everything that we can."

Sigrun Roesel, team leader of the WHO's Philippine immunisation programme, said the sometimes crowded and insanitary conditions at evacuation centres were potential breeding grounds for disease. "Measles is a dangerous disease for young children, who could then catch pneumonia and die from it, especially if they are malnourished," Roesel said.

She said the measles virus was a particular concern because it could easily be transmitted through coughing and sneezing.

An electron micrograph of a measles virus from the CDC