MEASLES: UNICEF WARNS OF DISEASE PROGRESSION
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| MEASLES UNICEF WARNS OF DISEASE PROGRESSION |
Measles: UNICEF warns of disease progression Measles attack jumped of about 50% of cases in 2018 to 2017
UNICEF warned, on Friday, of a resurgence of measles in the world with a jump of about 50% of cases reported in 2018 compared to 2017, making 136,000 deaths.
Globally, the United Nations Children's Agency (UN) notes that 98 countries reported more and more cases of measles compared to last year. "It's a wake-up call. We have got a safe, effective and inexpensive vaccine against a highly contagious disease; a vaccine that has saved nearly a million lives each year over the past two decades,” claimed Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of Unicef.
The anti-vax movement as a threat to health
Ten countries, including France, account for about three-quarters of the total increase in cases last year. In France, according to UNICEF, the increase between 2017 and 2018 was 2,269 cases; in other words, a jump from 519 to 2,788 cases.
Many things are responsible for this critical increase, such as poor health infrastructure, civil unrest and low community awareness in developing countries. In other countries, the reason behind this increase is the non-medical claims linking the measles vaccine (MMR vaccine) to autism, partly broadcast on social media by members of the so-called anti-vax movement, according to UNICEF.
Last month, WHO ranked "vaccine hesitancy" as one of the top 10 most pressing global health threats in 2019. WHO, however, recently recalled that "the main reason" for failure in childhood immunization is that those "who need it most (...) do not have access to the vaccine".