Fifty people hospitalised in Galgaduud measles outbreak

At least fifty people are hospitalized after an outbreak of measles in parts of Galgaduud region in Central Somalia, according to officials.

The disease broke out this week at  Do’olley village which did not have any health facility or health workers to help contain the diseases, according the area chief, Elmi Ahmed Jabuti who spoke to Goobjoog News.

Jabuuti  said that 50 people, most of them children under five, had been admitted to the Mother and Child Healthcare centre this week.

He said measles cases were most common in the village and the areas around it in Galgaduud region, because many children who had not been vaccinated had come from different locations.

Jabuuti pointed out that if urgent help is not delivered to those people many more children will die of the outbreak of the disease which he said “was spreading like a wildfire.”

Somali health infrastructure has collapsed with the overthrow of the former Somali ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.

Local and International aid agencies, most of whom have now stopped their operations, provided much of the meager health services for the people.