Millions in Iraq to get MMR jab
By jerrypandu
@jerrypandu (300)
Indonesia
April 21, 2007 9:33pm CST
A major immunisation campaign is to take place in Iraq in a bid to prevent an outbreak of measles.
The World Health Organization and Unicef are overseeing the work of 8,000 volunteers who aim to give up to 3.9 million children the MMR vaccine. The children, aged one to five, have missed out on their routine jabs because of the instability in Iraq.
Health experts warn measles could kill up to 10% of infected children if an epidemic took hold. While measles in countries like the UK is often perceived as a relatively harmless childhood illness, it kills more worldwide each year than any other disease which can be prevented by vaccination.
Iraq's Ministry of Health is organising the two-week MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunisation campaign, which is also being funded by the European Commission.
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1 response
@desertdarlene (8910)
• United States
22 Apr 07
I'm glad to see them getting vaccinated. I've actually been vaccinated three times because whenever I started school, we could never find our records, so I would get re-vaccinated. I don't think it is a harmless disease at all. The reason why they developed a vaccination for it is because it is dangerous, more dangerous than chicken pox. Rubella is also very dangerous as can be mumps. Mumps doesn't usually kill anyone, but can cause permanent problems.
I believe they also get immunized in the UK. Perhaps you are confusing it with chicken pox, which most people think is quite harmless. We have a vaccine for chicken pox here in the US.
