In June, one-year-old Sahil caught a fever and developed a rash all over his body. A month later, he was dead, mostly likely from a measles-malaria outbreak that ripped through Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district.
Sahil’s 12-year-old sister Lamnin fell ill with similar symptoms and died a day later at their home in Bondari village.
As Scroll reported in the first part of this series, at least 25 children from the Baiga and Gond tribes have died since May in this remote Adivasi habitation in Madhya Pradesh. For two months, the outbreak went undetected because of the complete absence of a healthcare system in the area.
Measles is a disease that can be prevented through vaccination. India added the measles vaccine to its universal immunisation programme in 1985.
But four decades later, in the villages of Balaghat, we found that immunisation drives against measles existed only on paper.
“Why should I lie?”
Sahil’s father Samaroo Dhurwey said that neither Sahil nor Lamlin had been vaccinated against measles.
Dhurwey told Scroll that none of his seven children had ever been immunised against any disease. His eldest daughter is married, and the youngest is five years old.
But the records maintained in the Kohnimod anganwadi in Bondari village show that Sahil last received one dose of the measles vaccine on April 21...
from Scroll.in https://scroll.in/article/1095636/behind-deaths-of-adivasi-children-in-madhya-pradesh-appalling-vaccination-levels-widespread-hunger?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=public https://sc0.blr1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/article/215384-bzlinbazka-1788422758.jpg
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