Health authorities were scrambling to vaccinate nearly 3 million children in southern Pakistan after a measles outbreak, UN and Pakistani officials said Tuesday.
Measles was suspected as the cause of 210 deaths last year in Sindh province, with most children dying because of post-measles complications, including pneumonia and diarrhea, the World Health Organization (said.
Health officials investigated 7,274 cases in Sindh alone, where a rising incidence of measles was first noticed in March and then again in October through December.
Sagheer Ahmed, provincial health minister, said 1,650 measles cases had been reported in Sindh in 2011, 28 of them fatal.
A "catch-up" immunization campaign supported by the United Nations was launched this week in eight high-risk districts of Sindh for children 9 months to 10 years old.
Ahmed suspended five officials for suspected negligence that contributed to the measles outbreak, his spokesman Ejaz Haider said by telephone.
At least 303 measles deaths had been reported nationwide for 2012, the government said