‘Why measles causes blindness in children’
A Public Health Physician and National Coordinator of the National Tuberculosis, Leprosy, and Buruli Ulcer Control Programme, Dr Chukwuma Anyaike says measles is one of the most common causes of blindness in children and affects the eyes in different ways.
He noted that measles is a deadly infection that could heavily impact the eyesight of children by affecting the retina and cornea.
The physician also disclosed that measles causes conjunctivitis, which is redness and watery eyes, popularly known as Apollo in Nigeria.
Measles is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus. It spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. It can cause severe disease, complications, and even death.
The World Health Organisation says even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available, in 2022, there were an estimated 136, 000 measles deaths globally, mostly among unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children under the age of five years.
Data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control revealed that no fewer than 10,096 clinically confirmed measles cases and 109 deaths were reported in Nigeria in 2021.
The disease control centre also added that 8,295 children out of the confirmed cases were not vaccinated with any dose of measles vaccination.
Speaking in an interview with PUNCH HealthWise, Anyaike said unimmunised and malnourished children were at risk of measles
The public health physician said, “Measles is a viral infection caused by the measles virus. Measles is vaccine-preventable. If you look at children that have measles, you see their eyes swollen, discharging pus. And most of the time, the eyelids turn the other way around.
“So why does measles cause blindness? Measles affects the eyes in many ways. It affects the retina and cornea. That is why we emphasise that mothers should take their babies for vaccination. Measles vaccination is given to babies at the ninth month.”
The physician also blamed cases of measles being reported in the country on poor health seeking among Nigerians.
“But most of the mothers do not keep appointments. Poor nutrition also exposes children to the risk of measles. Poor health-seeking behaviour is another problem.
Some of the people that you see now that are blind, got that blindness when they were young because their parents did not take them for immunization and also because it was not properly managed”, the physician said.
He urged mothers to take children for vaccination against measles, stressing that living with blindness comes with a lot of social, mental, and economic impact.
According to the World Health Organisation, measles vaccination averted 57 million deaths between 2000 and 2022.
It states that measles can affect anyone but is most common in children.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology says measles infections can harm the front or back of the eye, possibly causing vision loss or blindness.
The academy stated that though measles is just re-emerging as a threat in developed countries, the disease has long been a leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide.
“One study estimates that measles causes up to 60,000 cases of blindness a year globally. Poor access to measles vaccination and malnutrition often correlate with higher rates of blindness in the most affected countries”, it added.
Nigeria has experienced repeated outbreaks of measles in recent years due to low routine immunisation coverage.
The country introduced measles vaccination into the routine immunization program in 1978 for children aged nine months.
Data from the 2018 Demographic and Health Survey indicated that only 54 per cent of children 12–23 months had received the measles vaccine; far below the herd protection threshold.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Nigeria still contributes 30 per cent of the global number of unimmunised children between the ages of zero and five.
In a 2021 article published in BMC Public Health journal titled, ‘Measles outbreak in a complex emergency: estimating vaccine effectiveness and evaluation of the vaccination campaign in Borno State, Nigeria, 2019, the authors said from January to May 2019, large measles outbreaks affected all 36 states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory.
By the beginning of May 2019, the authors said there were more than 28,000 suspected measles cases reported and 89 associated deaths with measles.
