Health official plays down reports of measles epidemic

The ministry of health in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Sunday played down reports of a measles epidemic in Banga Yanga commune near the northern town of Bossangoa. "Our services detected some sporadic cases that do not go beyond 20," Dr Abel Namssenmo, director of preventative medicine and disease control, told IRIN. However, he said investigations were still going on, and that the senior regional doctor was in the capital, Bangui, to submit a report on the situation and to request help. National Radio Centrafrique on Thursday reported that 29 children had died of measles in the past month in Banga Yanga, which lies more than 350 km north of Bangui. Since the end of a six-month war in March, the Spanish charity Medicos Sin Fronteras (MSF) has been carrying out largescale anti-measles immunisation drives in the war-ravaged north. Children aged under 15 have been immunised in Paoua, 506 km northwest of Bangui; in Bozoum, 384 km to the northwest, and in and around Bossangoa, 305 km to the north. "Our November drive covered Bossangoa and villages 10 km around it, which did not include Banga Yanga," Matthieu Amiraux, MSF representative in the CAR, told IRIN on Saturday. He said MSF was not currently present at Banga Yanga. The northern provinces of Ouham and Ouham Pende, where most of the fighting took place, were deprived of immunisation campaigns and other medical services between October 2002 and March 2003, when Francois Bozize seized power from Ange-Felix Patasse. Routine immunisation resumed in October and a nationwide anti-polio campaign took place in November and December.