WHO Issues Urgent Call: Vaccinate Against Measles and Polio During the COVID Pandemic

The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund issued an urgent call on Thursday to prevent major epidemics of measles and polio as the new coronavirus disrupts immunization services around the world.

“COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on health services, and particularly immunization services, around the world,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. But unlike COVID, we have the tools and the knowledge to stop diseases like polio and measles. What we need are the resources and commitments to put these tools and knowledge into practice. If we do that, children’s lives will be saved. “

He said millions of vulnerable children are at increased risk of contracting these preventable diseases.

“We cannot allow the fight against one deadly disease to cause us to lose ground in the fight against other diseases,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “Addressing the global COVID-19 pandemic is critical. However, other deadly diseases also threaten the lives of millions of children.

Measles, considered one of the most contagious of all infectious diseases, causes severe flu-like symptoms and a characteristic irregular rash. However, one in 1,000 patients can die from measles. Those most at risk are children under the age of five and people with immunosuppression disorders.

The Ministry of Health describes on its website a rare but deadly complication that can appear several years after the onset of measles and cause serious and irreversible damage to the central nervous system, including mental deterioration and convolutions.

According to the WHO, during 2000-2018, vaccination against measles prevented 23.2 million deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control describes polio as a “disabling and life-threatening disease” that can infect people’s spinal cord and cause paralysis in various parts of their bodies.

The WHO said that more than 18 million people walk today who would have been paralyzed by polio thanks to vaccination.

In recent years, there has been a global resurgence of measles with ongoing outbreaks in all parts of the world.

Overall, measles cases have been on the rise in recent years, increasing by more than 300% in the first three months of 2019 compared to 2018. However, according to the WHO, in 2019 there were 216,662 cases worldwide between March and 2018. May 2019, while in 2020 there were only 23,973 during those months, a decrease of 89%.

The WHO and UNICEF statement said annual measles mortality data for 2019 will be released this week and will show the “continuing negative cost” that sustained outbreaks are taking in many countries around the world.

Since the introduction of measles vaccination in Israel in 1967, there has been a steady decline in the number of patients. However, outbreaks still sometimes occur in children who are not vaccinated, mainly as a consequence of the importation of the disease from abroad, the Ministry of Health explained on its website.

“Measles has been largely eliminated in Israel,” Leshem said during a discussion on the issue last July. “It only happens when people come from abroad and enter Israel unvaccinated. This has happened several times in the Orthodox community ”.

Between March 2018 and the end of May 2019, more than 4,250 Israelis contracted measles, the Ministry of Health showed.

With the borders closed since March, Leshem said, Israel has not had measles this year.

Three Israelis died of measles between November 2018 and August 2019: an 18-month-old boy who was not vaccinated; an 82-year-old woman; and a 43-year-old flight attendant who contracted measles while working a flight from New York. The young child was the first measles-related death recorded in Israel in 15 years.