Health authorities in Awerial launched the second round of measles campaign on Monday.
After the first round was conducted in February this year, 14 more cases of measles were later recorded in July and August, prompting the county government to go for the second exercise.
James Manyiel Agup, county medical officer, says the campaign teams of trained vaccinators will carry out the assignment, from door to door.
“This campaign will cover all the hard-to-reach areas. We dispatched the vaccines and vaccinators on Sunday. They report back after seven days of vaccination exercise,” Manyiel told Mingkaman FM.
The target age group is 6-59 months and the target number to be vaccinated across Awerial County is 36,000 children.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that is spread by coughing, sneezing, close personal contact or direct contact with infected nasal or throat secretions, according to CDC Africa.
The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to 2 hours.
Since January 2022 to 1 February 2023, health authorities in South Sudan are responding to an ongoing outbreak of measles, with 4339 suspected cases including 388 (8.9%) laboratory-confirmed cases and 46 deaths (case fatality ratio: 1.06%) reported across the country.
This campaign supported by the UN World Health Organization through the South Sudan Ministry of Health.