WHO decries 'collective failure' as measles kills 140,000

[snoop1130]

WHO decries 'collective failure' as measles kills 140,000

By Kate Kelland

 

FILE PHOTO: A nurse fills a syringe with a vaccine before administering an injection at a children's clinic in Kiev, Ukraine August 14, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Measles infected nearly 10 million people in 2018 and killed 140,000, mostly children, as devastating outbreaks of the viral disease hit every region of the world, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

 

In figures described by its director general as “an outrage”, the WHO said most of last year’s measles deaths were in children under five years old who had not been vaccinated.

 

“The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable children,” said the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus.

 

The picture for 2019 is even worse, the WHO said, with provisional data up to November showing a three-fold increase in case numbers compared with the same period in 2018.

 

The United States has already reported its highest number of measles cases in 25 years in 2019, while four countries in Europe - Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and Britain – lost their WHO “measles-free” status in 2018 after suffering large outbreaks.

 

An outbreak in the South Pacific nation of Samoa has infected more than 4,200 people and killed more than 60, mostly babies and children, in a battle complicated by a vocal anti-vaccination movement.

 

In 2018, measles hit hardest in Liberia, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Somalia, the WHO said, with these five nations accounting for nearly half of all cases worldwide.

 

Globally, measles vaccination rates have stagnated for almost a decade. The WHO and the UNICEF children’s fund say that in 2018, around 86% of children got a first dose of measles vaccine through routine vaccination plans, and fewer than 70% got the second dose recommended to fully protect them.

 

STAGGERING

 

Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at Britain’s London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the numbers were “staggering”.

 

“Some countries are scrambling to vaccinate in the face of serious outbreaks - far too late for many,” she said.

 

Measles is one of the most contagious known diseases, more so than Ebola, tuberculosis or flu. It can linger in the air or on surfaces for several hours after an infected person has been and gone, putting anyone not vaccinated at risk.

 

Among wealthier nations, vaccination rates have been hurt by some parents shunning them for what they say are religious or philosophical reasons. Mistrust of authority and debunked myths about links to autism also weaken vaccine confidence and lead some parents to delay protecting their children.

 

Research published in October showed that measles infection not only carries a risk of death or severe complications including pneumonia, brain damage, blindness and deafness, but can also damage the victim’s immune memory for months or years - leaving those who survive measles vulnerable to other dangerous diseases such as flu or severe diarrhea.

 

The WHO data showed there were an estimated 9,769,400 cases of measles and 142,300 related deaths globally in 2018. This compares to 7,585,900 cases and 124,000 deaths in 2017.

 

Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said the numbers were a tragedy. “If we are to protect lives, we must understand and address the reasons why measles vaccine uptake is lower,” she said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-12-06

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

[DoctorG]

14 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

An outbreak in the South Pacific nation of Samoa has infected more than 4,200 people and killed more than 60, mostly babies and children, in a battle complicated by a vocal anti-vaccination movement.

The anti-vaxers gained traction when 2 children died from an earlier bad dose of vaccine.

 

[Tug]

I’d like to prod those anti Vaxers  with a cattle prod sometimes we were getting close to eradicateing that particular virus sad

[Scott]

A post advocating quack cures has been removed.  

 

[NoBrainer]

Seems to me that the Anti-Vacine types are mostly Liberal Snowflakes. Too bad there is not a Vacine against liberalism.

[Mac98]

Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is not free speech. Anti-vaxer rants, with no scientific proof, and which might lead to a million deaths in total, should fall under that rule.

 

[Skeptic7]

These religious nuts...anti science...anti vax crowd are a growing problem around the world. Too bad they can't be eradicated! But seriously...these vaccinations should be mandatory, without question or recourse. 

[GroveHillWanderer]

4 hours ago, DoctorG said:

The anti-vaxers gained traction when 2 children died from an earlier bad dose of vaccine.

 

That's not quite accurate. As stated in a BBC article on this:

 

Quote

... their deaths were due to nurses mixing the vaccine with a muscle relaxant instead of water, and not the vaccine itself.

 

The cases had nonetheless raised local fears, and were exploited by people seeking false proof that vaccines are harmful.

Quote

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50682881

 

[car720]

3 hours ago, NoBrainer said:

Seems to me that the Anti-Vacine types are mostly Liberal Snowflakes. Too bad there is not a Vacine against liberalism.

There is.  It is called Communism.  

[car720]

2 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

These religious nuts...anti science...anti vax crowd are a growing problem around the world. Too bad they can't be eradicated! But seriously...these vaccinations should be mandatory, without question or recourse. 

Where were you when the vocal minorities were screaming about smoking killing the world?  I used to love to smoke, as did the majority of others, but they got their way in the end.  The same way that these people will get their way.

[GroveHillWanderer]

2 hours ago, rhyddid said:

What such marketing news forgot or omitted to say, that 90% of the infected have received recently a first shot of measles vaccination and international virologist are considering seriously of a possibility of poor quality or "went bad" vaccine that made measles virus more stronger and aggressive, such is already happening with antibiotics.

Do you have a source for that information? I can't find anything to confirm that 90% of the infected had recently received a first shot of the measles vaccination or that international virologist are considering any such thing as you suggest. All of the reports I've read on this outbreak point out that only 31% of children in Samoa had received one of two doses of the measles vaccine before the current outbreak began so that doesn't accord with your figures.

 

In any event, people who have only had the first vaccination are not considered immune so yes, such people are still liable to becoming infected.

 

Also, viruses (like measles) do not develop resistance to vaccines in the same way and to the same extent as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotic drugs.

 

It's not 100% clear why this is, but it is probably due to a combination of factors.

 

Quote

First, vaccines tend to work prophylactically while drugs tend to work therapeutically.

 

Second, vaccines tend to induce immune responses against multiple targets on a pathogen while drugs tend to target very few.

 

Consequently, pathogen populations generate less variation for vaccine resistance than they do for drug resistance, and selection has fewer opportunities to act on that variation. 

Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not?

[tgw]

7 hours ago, NoBrainer said:

Seems to me that the Anti-Vacine types are mostly Liberal Snowflakes.

actually no... they are as much right wing as left wing, their most frequent common trait is that they are nutters.

[BritManToo]

9 hours ago, Tug said:

I’d like to prod those anti Vaxers  with a cattle prod sometimes we were getting close to eradicateing that particular virus sad

If you read carefully, the deaths didn't happen in the west.

How many died in the USA, UK or Europe?

And how many people in "Liberia, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Somalia" (where 99% of the deaths happened) died due to infection from un-vaccinated western people?

[rickudon]

On 12/7/2019 at 6:39 PM, BritManToo said:

If you read carefully, the deaths didn't happen in the west.

How many died in the USA, UK or Europe?

And how many people in "Liberia, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Somalia" (where 99% of the deaths happened) died due to infection from un-vaccinated western people?

Actually, 37 people died in Europe of measles in the first 6 months this year. There were 90,000 cases in total. In Europe children are healthier and receive good medical treatment so the death rate is lower, normal death rate is around 0.1%, but with no healthcare and poor health can be much higher ....

it doesn't tell you how many suffered life changing damage - encephalitis, blindness, pneumonia and ear infections are all uncommon side effects. A damaged immune system is common and can last for months. One in three cases usually require hospitalisation.

 

Measles is considered the most infectious disease known - if you are exposed to an infected individual in your household, you have a 90% of catching it if you have not been previously vaccinated or infected.

[thaibeachlovers]

When I was a child, before measles vaccine was invented, I don't remember anyone dying of it, I was deliberately infected with it and suffered no permanent ill effects. Probably every kid I knew also got the disease and none of them died.

Can someone inform us if measles now is more deadly than it used to be.

[GroveHillWanderer]

On 12/10/2019 at 11:25 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

When I was a child, before measles vaccine was invented, I don't remember anyone dying of it, I was deliberately infected with it and suffered no permanent ill effects. Probably every kid I knew also got the disease and none of them died.

Can someone inform us if measles now is more deadly than it used to be.

According to the WHO, CDC etc, the death rate from measles (in terms of fatalities per thousand) has remained unaltered since before the introduction of the vaccine - it still kills 1 - 3 per thousand. Exact figures are difficult to get as cases are routinely under-reported. In countries with good health care and nutrition, rates are lower and in the opposite case, higher - the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this year, had 3,000 deaths from 180,000 cases.

 

Also, just because you don't know anyone who died of measles doesn't really mean anything. In a well-developed western country, unless you personally knew at least a thousand other children, the chances are fairly good you wouldn't have come across anyone who died. It also doesn't alter the fact that prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, an average of 2.6 million people died every year from the disease, worldwide.

 

Quote

WHO fact sheet - measles

I think the recent outbreaks in places like Samoa, the DRC and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa clearly show the link between a low vaccination rate and an increase in cases of (and deaths from) measles. In the DRC for instance, before this latest outbreak, less than 60% of children had been vaccinated. In Samoa it was even lower, at around 30%.

 

DRC Measles outbreak