27 Sep 2014

WIth three more deaths, Solomons measles outbreak worsens

6:42 am on 27 September 2014

Three more people have died from measles in Solomon Islands bringing the death toll from the outbreak to six, with 2300 cases reported so far.

The Emergency Operations centre in the Ministry of Health released the statistics today to counter misleading reports in the local newspapers that cases were on the decline.

The incident controller at the centre, Dr Aaron Oritaimae, says there has been a dramatic rise in the rate of infection with 829 cases reported in the last week alone.

200,000 additional doses of measles-rubella vaccine, which arrived into the capital, Honiara, yesterday, are the main line of defence and authorities are scrambling to vaccinate the population to curb the spread of the highly contagious virus.