The Ministry of Health (MOH), organized at the main meetings hall on Monday a press conference on the National Measles Immunization Campaign, which will be launched next week headed by H.E. Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Saidi, Minister of Health, in the presence H.E. Dr. Mohammed bin Saif al-Hosni, MOH Undersecretary for Health Affairs along with number of senior officials.

The Minister stated in his statement that: “The Ministry of Health has detected an outbreak of measles in the Sultanate. In 2016, the number of confirmed cases in the Sultanate reached 114 cases and since January till the end of April 2017, 44 cases have been registered”.

H.E. the Minister also pointed out to the factors that have contributed to the increase in the number of cases, which are the exponential increase in the number of expats from neighboring countries, the frequent population movements between countries which has experienced outbreaks of several communicable diseases including measles.

On the Ministry’s strategy, the Minister explained that the Sultanate is now considered to be in the elimination phase of measles and rubella. Many strategies and activities were adopted including surveillance, outbreak investigation and preventive measures throughout the years. He also added that, during the last years Oman reported low incidence rate for measles which has reached almost zero local case per million populations as per World health Organization (WHO) indicators.

The Minister addressed that the age group between 20 and 35 years is more susceptible to the infection and plays a role in transmitting it to the younger age groups.

The Ministry calls all citizens and residents between 20 and 35 years (born between 1982 and 1997) to get the free vaccine in the healthcare institutions and immunization centers, for their protection and to interrupt the virus transmission in the community.