WHO in a statement signed on Wednesday by Collins Boakye-Agyemang, its Spokesman for Africa, listed other countries to include Chad, Cameroon, DR Congo, Liberia, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, and Uganda.
Journalists gathered that measles is a highly contagious disease that accounts for 13 per cent of all vaccine-preventable deaths in children younger than 5 years in Africa, infecting nine in ten people who are not vaccinated.According to the WHO/UNICEF coverage estimates as of 2017, only 16 countries in the World Health Organization’s African Region had achieved 90 per cent or more immunisation coverage of the first dose of measles vaccine .
“We need to work together to improve immunization delivery so that all children are protected from preventable diseases. Recent disease outbreaks on the continent remind us of the urgency of this goal,” the statement quoted Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, as saying. The body said every year, more than 30 million children younger than 5 years in Africa fall sick due to vaccine-preventable diseases. Of them, more than half a million die – representing 56 percent of the global deaths related to vaccine-preventable diseases.