Vaccination of children against measles in Poland has fallen to below 93%. This means that we have lost our herd immunity to this disease, reports UNICEF Polska. – Measles is many times more contagious than COVID-19. One sick person can infect up to 18 others. This is three times more than in the case of the flu or SARS-CoV-2 – warns Dr. Hanna Czajka, pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist.

  1. In 2019, 1 thousand people fell ill with measles in Poland. 502 people. This is four times more than the year before and 24 times more than in 2017.
  2. Such a sharp increase in measles incidence is the result of lower vaccination coverage
  3. Over the past 10 years, the number of cases in which parents withdrew from vaccinating their children has increased fourteen times in Poland
  4. The outbreak of measles will have catastrophic consequences – says Dr. Hanna Czajka, an infectious disease specialist
  5. You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page

Measles and other infectious diseases are coming back to Poland

Infectious diseases may return to Poland, warns UNICEF Polska. More and more parents are failing to vaccinate their children against infectious diseases. Over the last 10 years, the number of such refusals in Poland has increased almost fourteen times. This led to the loss of population immunity to measles, as a result in 2019 in Poland four times more people contracted the disease than in the previous year.

– In Poland, in recent years we have been observing an extremely disturbing trend, especially among the parents of the youngest children. As a result of the activity of anti-vaccine communities, spreading disinformation and harmful myths, more and more parents avoid compulsory vaccinations of their own children. The situation has certainly not improved by the COVID-19 pandemic and the related fears and limitations in the activities of the primary health care clinic, says Dr. n. med. Hanna Czajka, pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist.

Over the past 10 years, the number of cases in which parents withdrew from vaccinating their children has increased fourteen times in Poland. In 2019, there were almost 49 thousand. such incidents and this trend is intensifying. The data of the National Institute of Public Health – PZH show that from January to October 2020, the number of waivers from compulsory vaccinations for children and adolescents increased by nearly 13 percent. compared to the same period of the previous year and exceeded 50 thousand.

We’ve lost herd immunity to measles

In the case of measles, we can speak of population immunity if childhood vaccination is at the level of 95%. The anti-vaccine trend related to this disease, observed for a decade, meant that we lost this immunity a few years ago.

  1. Measles: The course of the disease is unpredictable

– In order to guarantee the society’s immunity against measles, it is necessary to maintain the vaccination coverage at the level of 95%. Meanwhile, in Poland, the percentage of children vaccinated with the basic dose of MMR (combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – ed.) Fell below this limit already in 2017, and in 2018 it was less than 93%. Now, please realize that measles is many times more contagious than COVID-19. One sick person can infect up to 18 others. This is three times more than the flu or SARS-CoV-2. With such a scale of virus transmission and a further decline in vaccination rates, the measles outbreak will have catastrophic consequences, says Dr. Czajka.

– We have become a victim of the prosperity and universal vaccination. It is simply rare and long since we have seen people suffering from measles, polio, diphtheria and tetanus – explains Dr. Monika Kacprzak in an interview with the TVN24 magazine “Polska i świat”.

Measles – a very dangerous disease

According to the NIPH-PZH, in Poland before the introduction of compulsory vaccination against measles, i.e. in the years 1955-1974, the number of cases was from 70 thousand. up to 130 thousand in the years between epidemics and from 135 thousand. up to 200 thousand in epidemic years.

200-300 children per year died then, and thousands had severe complications requiring long-term hospitalization.

  1. Measles is not a mild childhood disease

Measles is most dangerous for children up to 5 years of age and people with impaired immune systems. Every fourth ill person requires hospitalization. One person in every thousand infected dies.

Complications appear in about 30% of patients. measles patients. The most common are otitis media leading to hearing loss, diarrhea, pneumonia, acute encephalitis leading to cerebral edema, visual disturbances leading to blindness, and the rare severe brain injury known as subacute sclerosing encephalitis (SSPE), which may occur several times. years after illness.

  1. Measles – neurological complications

Measles – how many people got sick in Poland in 2019?

According to PZH data, 2018 people fell ill with measles in 359, a year later already 1 thousand. 502 cases. For comparison, in 2017 63 people fell ill, and in 2005-2016 the number of cases ranged from 13 to 133.

In 2019, the highest number of measles cases was recorded among people aged 35-39 years – 277 cases in total (in 123 men and 154 women). There were 4 cases of measles among children under 112 years of age, and 5 cases among children aged 9-41 years.

  1. Measles and whooping cough are back. The number of unvaccinated children is increasing

The worst months were March (316), April (305) and February (278).. Only one case was recorded in November, four in September, five in October, six in December.

There were also cases of sickness among people who were vaccinated, but most of them were in people who had only received one dose of the vaccine (279 cases out of 300).

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According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), in terms of the incidence rate (number of cases per 100 inhabitants), Poland is at the forefront of Europe. In 2019, the total number of recorded measles cases in France, Romania, Italy, Bulgaria and Poland accounted for 65%. all cases of this disease in Europe.

In 2019, 869 jobs were recorded worldwide. 770 cases of measles. This is the highest number in 23 years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), in 2019 the number of deaths worldwide from measles increased by half compared to 2016 and amounted to 207. 500.

Also read:

  1. Will there be consequences for people not getting the COVID-19 vaccine?
  2. How many people in Poland died or had thrombosis after vaccination? New data
  3. Will it also be possible to mix COVID-19 vaccines in Poland? The Ministry of Health responds

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