"Children are dying unnecessarily."
"Children are dying unnecessarily."
Last Feb. 7, Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III declared a measles outbreak in five regions in the country: National Capital Region, Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon), Central Luzon, Western Visayas, and Central Visayas.
Health workers are now scrambling to contain the outbreak that as of Feb. 7 has killed 72 from more than 2,000 cases of measles nationwide. There were 55 deaths last January alone at San Lazaro Hospital, Manila, most of them children aged three months to four years.
In Manila, the incidence of measles for the period Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 increased this year by a staggering 550 percent from last year. In the entire country, from 4,000 cases in 2017 there were 21,000 cases in 2018, a 425 percent increase.
What caused the meteoric rise in numbers of measles cases this year? According to Duque, it was a decline in vaccination rates partly caused by the anti-Dengvaxia vaccine scare of last year, which undermined public trust in immunization.
Vaccine hesitancy has also been noted as the main cause of similar outbreaks in the United States over the past several years, most recently in Portland, Oregon, and in New York.
Anti-vaccine advocates or ‘antivaxxers’ in the U.S. have been vigorously opposing immunization after a fraudulent report by discredited physician Andrew Wakefield 21 years ago falsely claimed a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism.
World Health Organization country representative Dr. Gundo Weiler said that for a community to achieve ‘herd immunity’, 95 percent of its population must be inoculated against disease. The Philippines, however, has not achieved this because vaccination rates in the Philippines hovered between 70 percent to 80 percent and dropped close to 60 percent in 2018.
Measles is a deadly disease, but the vaccine can protect against it. Maggie Fox, writing for NBC News.com, said,“People who are fully vaccinated against measles have very little risk of becoming infected. The vaccine provides upwards of 95 percent protection. But measles is one of the most infectious viruses known and will infect 90 percent of unimmunized people who breathe it in.”
The Palace instructed DOH to take “more aggressive action” in its fight against the measles scourge. Here’s one example of the actions being taken by the DOH to push back, as detailed in a Feb. 8 advisory from DOH-Center for Health Development in Western Visayas. The document lists action points to “interrupt [the] transmission of [the] measles virus” in the area.
The first action point is the enhanced catch-up immunization for defaulters. Health workers are to exert “all efforts” to “conduct selected vaccination of unimmunized children” either facility based or door-to-door.
Second, the interruption of measles transmission in hospitals and health facilities is to be accomplished by the establishment of a “measles fast lane” to “promptly manage clients with fever and rash.” Only those diagnosed with measles are to be confined. There are to be dedicated isolation rooms for measles cases, as well as strict implementation of infection control protocols and the immunization of health workers.
The third action point is related to “strengthening measles surveillance and advocacy,” including the intensification of the advocacy against measles and the provision of “proper health information on the benefits and importance of immunization and risk for nonvaccination.”
The advisory also requires the conduct of region-wide supplemental immunization in the second quarter of this year.
I tried to get more information about the DOH’s latest actions but their website was down when I visited it on February 10. They should get it back up and running soonest so that the public may be better informed about what’s happening and what to do.
What’s important to realize is that the measles outbreak could have been avoided if those children had been immunized. Those responsible for the Dengvaxia scare should not be able to sleep at night if they have consciences. While they did not specifically mention other vaccines, the hype they created around the issue was sufficient to cause many Filipinos to fear vaccines that have been a part of healthcare protocol for children for decades.
Children are dying unnecessarily. Those who have voices and platforms can help by spreading the truth about vaccines, that they prevent diseases that can kill.
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Don’t be stupid. Get your children vaccinated! FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO
