Health workers are rushing to vaccinate more than half a million children in Nepal as fears grow that last month’s massive earthquake has made youngsters more susceptible to disease.
UNICEF has warned of a race against time to prevent a deadly outbreak of measles in the impoverished Himalayan mountain nation following the April 25 quake that killed 7,675 people and injured more than 16,300 others.
The UN children’s fund, the World Health Organization and the Nepalese government are targeting the urgent inoculation of 500,000 children in the areas worst-hit by the quake.
“Before the earthquake, one in ten children in Nepal was not vaccinated against measles, so we’re going to vaccinate half a million children in the coming weeks,” Kent Page, UNICEF Nepal’s emergency spokesperson, told AFP.