Clusters of measles outbreaks in a special group of the Midlands population, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Over the past two years, the Gokwe districts in the Midlands Province have implemented aggressive measles control activities, targeting children aged nine months to 10 years. These included massive and extensive vaccination programmes and intensive training of health workers on the management of Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) diseases with particular emphasis on measles disease. Unfortunately, the monitoring and supervision of the EPI management and EPI diseases surveillance has remained poor due to basic logistic and management problems, which the health managers in Gokwe have over the year failed to overcome.