Myanmar: 41 now dead, with killer identified as measles

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar (AA) - Medical teams have arrived in a remote and impoverished area of Myanmar’s north to treat hundreds of people suffering from an outbreak of a measles-like disease that has killed scores of people over the past six weeks.

Local authorities are carrying out widespread vaccinations to contain the pandemic under the supervision of specialists from the Public Health Department and local hospitals.

As of Monday, more than 40 people -- mostly children -- had succumbed to the virus in nine villages of the Naga Self-Administrative Zone in Sagaing region, a mountainous area populated by people from the Naga tribes on the border with India.

"The death toll reached 41 as three more children died from the diseases in the past two days,” Zone Chairman Kay Sai told Anadolu Agency by phone Monday.

“Most of them were under five years old.”

Reports have suggested that the illness that has caused the deaths leads to rashes, a difficulty breathing, and the patient coughing up specks of blood. It is one of the many infections that have struck the area since early June, with hundreds affected by viral diseases including diarrhea, influenza, cough and eye problems.

On Sunday, state media reported that many of those suffering had "measles", with the virus found in the blood of three out of five children tested.

Last week, the ministry of health said that a major factor in the spread of the disease was the problem officials had reaching the area to administer vaccines.

Around 120,000 people live in Sagaing region, where many Naga communities -- a conglomeration of several tribes inhabiting the northeastern part of India and northwestern Myanmar -- are impoverished and inaccessible by road.

“It’s very difficult for health workers to reach some areas in our region,” Kay Sai said, adding that it had only one doctor, in the main township of Lahe.

“It takes a two-day bike-ride to reach some villages as the road conditions are very bad.”

Thet Aung, lower house lawmaker for Lahe Township, told Anadolu Agency that medical camps have been set up in the affected areas to give treatment to sick villagers.

"Around 40 doctors from the ministry of health and from Naga Land in India are providing healthcare,” he said by phone.

“We are hoping to bring the situation under control as soon as possible."​