Since the beginning of 2019, at least 319 cases of measles have been registered in Kyrgyzstan. The Director of the Republican Center for Immunoprophylaxis under the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan, Gulbara Ishenapysova, told 24.kg news agency.
According to her, 1,005 cases of the disease were registered in 2018. At least 48 percent of cases are children not vaccinated in due age (up to 1 year), 20 percent — from the number of vaccination refusers. Most of the people who got measles are residents of Bishkek, Osh and Chui regions.
She noted that WHO experts had given Kyrgyzstan the status of the resumption of the endemic circulation of the measles virus. «The virus was brought to Kyrgyzstan in 2017 from Russia,» she recalled.
«There is a problem with the refusers, but we have managed to increase measles vaccination coverage in the republic by 2 percent,» she said.
All activities are carried out according to an operating plan for containment of measles growth, adopted in early 2018.
Contact persons are vaccinated at the age from 6 months to 50 years.
