Nairobi — Thousands of children have been infected by measles in famine-threatened Somalia, already hit by an epidemic of cholera, the UN children’s agency Unicef said on Tuesday, as it launched a campaign to vaccinate some 360,000 children in one month. The UN is racing to avoid a repeat of famine in the drought-hit Horn of African nation where more than 250,000 people died of starvation in 2011. "We know only too well from the 2011 famine that measles, combined with malnutrition and displacement, is an especially lethal combination for children," Steven Lauwerier, Unicef’s representative in Somalia, said in a statement. "Among vaccine-preventable diseases, none is more deadly than measles." Almost 5,700 cases of suspected measles have been reported across Somalia since the start of 2017, more than the total number of cases in 2016, he said. Measles, a viral respiratory infection that spreads through air and contact with infected mucus and saliva, thrives in congested, unsanitary d...
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