‘Sharp increase’ in measles cases in Somalia

The United Nations children’s agency says severe drought in Somalia has led to a huge increase in the number of people contracting measles. It says more people caught the disease in the first four months of this year than the whole of 2016.

Many of the 5,700 cases are children displaced by the drought, the worst in decades.

Measles thrives in the over-crowded, unsanitary camps where people fleeing drought gather. The disease often kills children already weakened by a lack of food and water, living in tiny, makeshift shelters.

In the past few days, Unicef has vaccinated nearly 30,000 young children in the south-western town of Baidoa, where last month alone 70,000 people arrived seeking help.

Just six years ago, more than 250,000 people died in a famine in Somalia. More than half were children under five with measles a major killer.

Many children in Somalia have never been immunised. They live in areas affected by nearly three decades of conflict or controlled by the violent Islamist group al-Shabab, which has kidnapped health workers and opposed vaccination as a Western evil.