(WNAM Monitoring): At Tuesday’s Government meeting, Prime Minister Smailov admitted Kazakhstan has been witnessing an unprecedented surge in measles cases since last year. “This is the biggest surge in measles cases in the country in the past decade. About 80 per cent of those diagnosed with measles are children under 14. Majority of them have not been vaccinated [Ed. note – against measles],” he said.
Unfortunately, according to Smailov, there are many parents who are unwilling to vaccinate their children.
“This may lead to serious consequences and the only way to stabilize the measles situation is to vaccinate,” said the Premier, adding Kazakhstan had purchased extra 1.5 million doses of vaccines for mass immunization purposes.
To this end, the Kazakh Government earmarked over 3 billion tenge. However, rate of vaccination against measles remains quite low in some regions of the country.
In this light, the Healthcare Ministry and regional authorities were tasked to step up vaccination against measles.
