humanity has an effective vaccine for the disease of measles for the past five decades. However, in 2018, nearly nine million people in the world contracted the measles and 142,000 were killed as a result of its effects. An average of 400 people die every day, mainly children.
In a recent communiqué, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave the signal of alarm: this year, the number of cases is multiplied by three. In Europe, 12,000 people were infected with measles this year. In most countries, the level of vaccination of children is lower than 95%, and this proportion corresponds with the limit of safety. “The incorrect information that is disseminated in the social networks have a real influence on the decisions of parents regarding immunization of their children, and the result is that children catching the measles, and some die,” says Kate O’brien, director of immunization and biologicals, WHO.
why serious is measles?
The disease begins with high fever, runny nose and white spots on the mucosa. A few days later, give rise to a skin rash on the face and neck, then spreading progressively to the rest of the body. In case of contact with this virus that spreads easily through the air, a person who has not had prior measles and is not vaccinated has a 98% chance of infection.
measles usually lasts 10 to 14 days. Among the possible complications are blindness, edema, encephalitis, severe diarrhea, infections of the airways and pneumonia. The representatives of the who emphasize that the development of the measles can damage the memory of the immune system for months, and even years after the infection, which affects the sensitivity to other serious diseases.
The lie founder of the movement antivacuna modern
it All started with a hoax. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published an article in the medical journal the Lancet in which associated the vaccination MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) with autism and enteritis. There was a genuine outbreak of panic, the topic appeared in the media and he spent a large amount of programs and movies. Heard numerous stories dramatic of sick children whose parents believed that the inoculation of the measles virus was the cause of autism.
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where is this theory? In the mid-nineties, Wakefield was a surgeon in a London hospital, where he noted that some people living with Crohn’s disease were carriers of the smallpox virus. According to the doctor, the virus came from the vaccine. Wakefield was just one step of the theory according to which the MMR vaccine was the cause of Crohn’s disease. The vaccine was already in the crosshairs of the parents association (JAB), whose children were suffering from neurological diseases. Wakefield examined 12 children in conditions which, later, proved to be unreliable.
The results of his research were questioned after several years. Wakefield claimed that the children were in perfect health prior to the administration of the MMR vaccine, when in fact five of them had experienced serious development problems. Wakefield falsified the results of the tissue samples collected in the intestines of children to fit your theory. The tests were repeated in laboratories around the world, and there was not found any link between the MMR vaccine and the diseases. In 2010, Wakefield lost his life-his right to practice medicine. But the rumor spread all over the world and gave rise to the development of the movements antivacuna.
let us Examine more closely the situation in several european countries:
Spain
A study of 2015 shows that Spanish parents who refrain from vaccinating their children due to the fear of side effects, to autism and by the fact of believing that the pharmaceutical companies promote useless treatments solely for the purposes of profit. Many add that they can defend your body thanks to homeopathy, acupuncture and a natural diet.
The magazine Discovery Health, which has over 36,000 followers on Facebook, is one of the means that are leading this trend, with the defense of the calls of the alternative medicines as the editorial line. In the December issue you can read, for example, that malignant tumors can be treated with a regimen of food, and in November presented the saffron as an effective remedy against the cancer. The farmer and healer Josep Pàmies, who struggle for the recognition of alternative medicines in their public health services, is one of their columnists usual. Another of its drafters, Andreas Kalcker, who is presented as a biologist, defends the use of chlorine dioxide, the bleach and the disinfectant, such as medications.
A trend is very fashionable recently in Spain is the theory of Enric Corbera, called bioneuroemoción, according to which the diseases have nothing to do with the infections or pathogens, but rather with the emotions. The treatment consists of sessions pseudopsicológicas by the charged 90 euros for a consultation of an hour and a half.
In Spain, they have recorded 214 cases of srampión in 2018, a slight increase compared to the previous years. Despite the fact that we are far from the more than 200,000 cases of 1986, in 2011 the victims of this disease have exceeded the seven per 100,000 people. The figure stops seem low if one compares with the average of the last two decades: 0,84 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data from the National Network of Epidemiological Surveillance of the National Centre for Epidemiology (ISCIII).
The presence of the movements antivacuna in the Spanish media is poor. Since the return to power of the PSOE in 2018, the Government has initiated intensive awareness campaigns against the pseudoterapias, including the antivacunas. In April of 2019, the Ministry of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare launched a timetable campaignwith the motto V for vaccine-V of life. The objective was to demonstrate the benefits of vaccines and to counter the disinformation on this topic.
France
France is one of the countries in which there is greater distrust of vaccines. According to a study last June, one of every three French felt that they are not safe. Between 2008 and 2014 were registered in the country to 23,000 cases of measles, which caused more than 30 encephalitis and a dozen deaths.
Jocelyn Raude, a French sociologist who has studied the movements antivacuna, considered in an interview in Le Figaro that there are three main streams: those that are linked to the political movements of the extreme right or the extreme left, the next to the conspiracy theories and the supporters of alternative medicines. Lucie Guimier, who developed a thesis about the reluctance geographical the vaccine, explains that, for example, in Ardèche department of southern France, the skepticism with regard to the vaccination is linked to the story. The resistance has been an important element of the local history; in the first place with the adoption of protestantism in the SIXTEENTH century and then with the maquis during the Second World War. In addition, in the 1960s and 1970s, this area attracted a lot of people that he fled the society of consumption.
In France, there are seven vaccines for 10 diseases, that are required for children born on or after 1 January 2018. The vaccination certificates, registered in the health card that each child receives at his birth, must be submitted when parents enroll their children in day-care or elementary school. If children are not vaccinated, they can enroll, but the vaccines must be brought into compliance within a period of three months.
This policy was awakened to the movements antivacuna and led to a new mobilization through the social networks at the beginning of 2018. To combat this, the Ministry of Health launched its own campaign in which he recalls that the vaccines are safe and contribute to the protection of persons who cannot be vaccinated (younger than three months, sick children, etc) and to block the epidemics, which can be very deadly.
To avoid vaccinating their children, some parents are delaying doctor visits or forget deliberately the health insurance card to delay vaccinating until they are two years old. Others find doctors willing to agree to sign a certificate of contraindication, that should be limited to very specific cases, such as severe allergies or autoimmune diseases. There are also those who opt for home education to avoid the vaccination of children.
Belgium
In Belgium, ten years ago, that is movement active Citizens ‘ Initiative, created during the pandemic of influenza A/H1N1. Is maintained thanks to the donations of its supporters and has 3,600 followers on Facebook and 377 in Twitter. Citizens ‘ initiative boasts of having made known a contract between the belgian Government and the pharmaceutical company GSK, which guarantees the purchase of 12 million doses of the vaccine against the virus A/H1N1 by a value of 110 million euros and without a public tender.
In Belgium, it is only compulsory vaccine against polio. The recent debate on the vaccination focused on measles and its complete removal in the country as most of this year. In 2019 were reported 257 cases of measles in Belgium, that is to say, three times more than in a year before.
dr. Carole Schirvel, coordinator of the cell of infectious disease surveillance from the Aviq (walloon Agency for a life of quality) considered the movements antivacuna are “marginal” in Belgium: “Our immunization programs work well, and the rates of immunity weakest observed in the young people of 30 to 40 years; they are the people who have not had access to vaccination programmes established in 1985. The coverage of the measles vaccine is 96%”.
Poland
In Poland, the main organization that fights for the free choice of the vaccination is to STOP NOP. Do not leave to call “antivacunas”. Its official name is the national Association for the knowledge of vaccination.
STOP NOP it said last October with an appeal in which he implied that, in the intensive care units, the doctors were killing patients by administering morphine. The Ministry of Health requested the public prosecutor to open an investigation. Justyna Socha, head of the association, has already lost two trials for allegations of medical.
Similarly, in your web page, STOP NOP has revived the collection of signatures for the bill Vaccination safe. You filed in the previous legislature, was rejected. Although they had a computer parliamentarian who represented their interests, none of the militants antivacuna that was in the lists of the nationalist party Confederation was elected in the last election. For the project to be discussed in the Polish Diet, you must gather 100,000 signatures. The authorities of Warsaw have recently decided that only the vaccinated children could enroll in public kindergartens. A similar project is under study in Wrocław and in Poznań.
The analysis shows that will change the tide
Robert T. Chen and Beth Hibbs, of the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (Centers for control and disease prevention, agency of the federal Department of Health of the united States) in Atlanta have described the flow of information and its correlation with attitudes towards vaccination. In the beginning, people are happy with the shots because he still recalls the threat, have contact with people who are sick and it is feared an epidemic. When the disease can be reduced as a result of the vaccination, paradoxically, it also decreases the confidence in vaccines. Forget the illness, suffering, complications, and costs. There is No immediate threat and the vaccination no longer seems necessary. The rate of vaccination in the society decreases. Disease become, statistics, alarms, anxiety increases and after some time it restores confidence in vaccinations, and with it the belief that they are effective.
