Measles in Myanmar’s Naga areas take 82 lives

DIMAPUR, AUGUST 26 : The number of deaths caused by what doctors have called a type of measles in at least 9 villages inside the mountainous Naga Self-Administered Zone of north-western Myanmar has climbed to 82 as of Friday evening. This was informed to Eastern Mirror by Athong Makury, chairman of the Council of Naga Affairs (Myanmar) today. Aside from the deaths caused, the viral disease has also affected about 800 people living in the area, according to Makury. Some 10 to 12 doctors, including those from the World Health Organization, Swissaid and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), were treating the villagers, he informed. Ten days ago, the doctors from Swissaid and Médecins Sans Frontières had called a press conference in Yangon to announce that the Myanmar government was refusing them entry into the affected villages. While it appears that the Myanmarese authorities have now allowed the foreign doctors to enter the villages, according to Makury, the latter group has been “somehow restricted” and made to “follow the government programme”. Also, relief materials provided by the government were “not sufficient at all”, he said. On top of that, transit of food and relief materials dispatched by the government to the affected areas is 'very slow,' according to Makury. “The government of Myanmar makes a lot of fancy news but ground implementation is very poor,” he said. It was only last week that one of Myanmar’s state-run newspapers wrote that no more deaths from the viral disease had been reported in the region as the situation was finally under control. Since the claim was made by the newspaper, at least 20 more deaths have been reported.