The death toll from measles reached its highest level in 23 years last year, a report released on Thursday said, adding that a dramatic increase in vaccine-preventable disease and public health experts fear the coronavirus epidemic continues to hamper immune and diagnostic efforts. .
According to an analysis released jointly by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of global deaths for the year 2019 – 207,500 – is 50 percent higher than in just three years. No measles deaths have been reported in the United States, but measles cases in the country have reached annual highs in 1 state, the highest since 1992, according to figures updated earlier this month. As of recently 2012, U.S. The case figure was 55.
The growing numbers are the result of years of inadequate vaccination shields, public health experts said. They worry that the epidemic will increase the spread of measles, a disease that is even more contagious than Kovid-19.
A senior technical adviser on measles and rubella at the WHO, Dr. “We’re concerned that there are new places for the immune system to start over what was already there because of Covid,” said Natasha Crocroft. Do the same and expect a different outcome.
Although measles cases have dropped this year, public health experts are keeping the figure at arm’s length. They fear that such numbers are severely undercounted due to the global epidemic in health care, hence the decline in measles detection and medical care – as well as prevention efforts.
Outbreaks appear to be exacerbated this year in at least half of the 26 countries that have had to suspend vaccination campaigns due to the epidemic. As of this month, millions of people are at risk of missing the measles vaccine, according to the WHO, while measles cases may actually be somewhat suppressed as a collateral effect to prevent the spread of coronavirus, experts say, at best, the current low figure is just one Represents a temporary loo.
Details of the outbreak have been reported by the Measles and Rubella Initiative, an international consortium, the WHO and the CDC, as well as the American Red Cross, UNICEF and the United Nations Foundation. The group highlighted the dire numbers to strengthen its message: Vaccination efforts should continue, especially during epidemics, when health care resources are running out.
As a positive example, public health leaders point to Ethiopia, which lags behind many countries in measles immunity rates. In collaboration with the CDC and other organizations, Ethiopia launched a vaccination campaign in June that included more protective devices for health care workers and timely, socially remote appointments, and reached 14.5 million children.
International epidemiologists compare last year’s measles outbreak to the slow building forest fire that eventually erupted. Over a decade, vaccination rates around the world have stabilized, guaranteeing good coverage in many areas, but it still has not achieved the high percentage needed to stop the infection. Many outbreaks, including 25 in the United States last year, arose from travelers from other countries.
Of the 184 countries registered in 2019, 9 reported 73 percent of cases: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Samoa, Tonga and Ukraine.
In addition to low-income countries through measles, public health experts have noted with alarm that middle-income countries such as Ukraine, northern Macedonia, Georgia and Kazakhstan are now leading the roster of those most affected. Surprisingly, the number of “zero dose” children – who have not been vaccinated at all – again account for 9..5 million or 69 percent in middle-income countries, including Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines. Total.
Depression has contributed to vaccination rates due to growing doubts about the safety of vaccines worldwide. UNICEF’s head of immunization, Dr. Nand. “In some high-coverage countries, the joy of gas pedals was growing,” said Robin Nandi.
At the same time, he added, “we still miss a large proportion of children in health services – in rural, or urban slums, or in areas where there is armed conflict.”
Efforts to unravel a decades-old story involving the richest cities in the world and its poorest outpost teams. Indeed, from 2010 to 2001, measles-related cases and mortality dropped to 1 million cases per 1 million people.
But at the same time, vaccination coverage seemed to stall. To prevent the measles epidemic, 95 percent of the population must get two measles vaccines. But since 2010, the rate of the first vaccine, ideally given when a child is about one year old, has stagnated at a level of about 85 percent worldwide; While broad coverage for the second shot, usually between and and ages, has increased, it is now only 1 percent.
And every day, babies are born. Accumulated number of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated mounts. By 2019, the number of reported cases worldwide is 120 per 1 million.
“The scary thing now is that our essential public health workers have been denied Kozid-19 to diagnose, test and report suspected measles cases,” said Rob Lincoln, an epidemiologist at CDC, who chairs the Measles and Rubella Initiative Management team. He said, “Ori, you have to be cruel.”
In high-income countries like the United States, measles mortality is virtually zero, as general health is already good and the health care system is strong. Last year Lincolns said there was alarming evidence of poor health care as well as under-vaccination, the worldwide highest number of measles deaths in the world last year.
“It’s hard for me to believe that children are dying from a disease for which we have had a great vaccine for 50 years.”
