WHO warned of new outbreaks of measles and polio

April 27, 2020, 15:51

Vac­cines pro­tect us through­out our lives and at dif­fer­ent ages. It is very impor­tant to get the nec­es­sary vac­ci­na­tions on time for health safe­ty. How­ev­er, the coro­n­avirus out­break has severe­ly impact­ed many health­care ser­vices, poten­tial­ly trig­ger­ing epi­demics of new dis­eases such as measles and polio.

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has affect­ed every­one’s life. Mea­sures to com­bat the spread of infec­tion have lim­it­ed the oper­a­tion of many ser­vices, includ­ing essen­tial med­ical areas.

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) has warned that the coro­n­avirus could pro­voke a new round of the spread of infec­tious dis­eases pre­ventable by vac­ci­na­tion. These include measles and polio.

Sus­pen­sion of immu­niza­tion, even for a short time, increas­es the risk of an increase in infec­tious dis­eases pre­ventable with safe and effec­tive vac­cines, accord­ing to the agency.

“It is essen­tial that essen­tial health ser­vices such as immu­niza­tion con­tin­ue to be pro­vid­ed, even dur­ing times of emer­gency,”

- said the mis­sion on the eve of World Immu­niza­tion Week, which runs from April 24 to 30.

The agen­cy’s experts also cit­ed the exam­ple of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go, which was hit hard by a measles out­break in 2019. There, the dis­ease arose against the back­drop of a new wave of the Ebo­la epi­dem­ic and took the lives of more than 6 thou­sand peo­ple.

In addi­tion, it is not­ed that out­breaks of new dis­eases can pro­voke an over­load of health sys­tems, which at this stage are already busy fight­ing the con­se­quences of COVID-19. The head of the orga­ni­za­tion, Tedros Adhanom Ghe­breye­sus, is con­vinced that the world should not for­get about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of los­ing achieve­ments in the fight against dan­ger­ous dis­eases, and the lack of vac­ci­na­tion will lead to their spread.

The fact is that before all this sto­ry with the coro­n­avirus, the world com­mu­ni­ty man­aged to achieve suc­cess in immu­niz­ing chil­dren. WHO esti­mates that 86% of chil­dren under five years of age were vac­ci­nat­ed against diph­the­ria, tetanus and whoop­ing cough in 2018. In 2000 the num­ber was 72%, and in 1980 it was only 20%.

At the same time, cas­es of paral­y­sis due to polio in chil­dren have been reduced by 99.9 per­cent world­wide. That is why the obser­vance of sea­son­al vac­ci­na­tions is so impor­tant for the health of chil­dren and adults. Accord­ing to the WHO, immu­niza­tion of 95 per­cent of peo­ple can pro­vide com­plete pro­tec­tion against out­breaks of infec­tious dis­eases that are pre­vent­ed by vac­cines.

Pho­to: freepik

Source: moirebenok.ua