ever campaign to vaccinate children against measles Monday in the country's southwest, a health official said. The vaccination campaign, to run through July 18, will target children between 9 months and 13 years of age in seven districts of southwestern Baluchistan province, Muneer Kasi, a senior provincial health official, said Sunday. Pakistan _ one of the priority countries in the global fight against measles _ completed the first phase of the vaccination campaign in March in three districts in the country's northwest and one in the south. The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund are providing technical and financial assistance to the Pakistan government program, which aims to vaccinate more than 63 million children nationwide by March 2008, UNICEF said. It said an estimated 21,000 children die from measles and its complications in Pakistan each year, the Associated Press reported. In Baluchistan, about 3,200 health staff and volunteers will try to reach more than 1 million children in remote areas of the sparsely populated province, UNICEF said. The campaign was initially planned for eight districts but one was dropped because of flooding caused by recent heavy rains, Kasi said. Measles _ a highly contagious viral disease spread by coughing and sneezing _ is a leading cause of death among young children, according to WHO.
