The world’s biggest epidemic
Measles is cutting a swathe through DR Congo.
Measles has killed nearly 5,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019, authorities said, after the disease spread to all the provinces in the country.
Close to a quarter of a million people have been infected this year alone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says this is the world’s largest and fastest-moving epidemic.
But hey, please let’s hear more from prosperous middle-class white people in California and Surrey who refuse to vaccinate their little Gwyneth and Nigel.
The Congolese government and the WHO launched an emergency vaccination programme in September that aimed to inoculate more than 800,000 children.
But poor infrastructure, attacks on health centres and a lack of access to routine healthcare have all hindered efforts to stop the spread of the disease.
Four million children have been vaccinated, but experts warn that this amounts to less than half of the total in the country – and not enough vaccines are available.
The majority of those infected with measles in the country are infants.
Meanwhile there’s a Facebook page for Stop Mandatory Vaccination Now. It’s very active.
Just got an adult MMR booster, and I’ll look after a varicella vaccine relatively soon. Not doing these things is simply irresponsible.
Seriously fuck Zuckerberg… FB should be shutting down groups like that hard…
36 measles deaths this month in Samoa, where vaccination rates have dropped from the 70+% to 30% over health scares. A rising epidemic in Fiji. Several thousand have died from the disease in Madagascar over the past year. Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand…
All affected to a greater or lesser degree by scare campaigns targeting vaccination.
I wish anti-vaxxers could be charged with manslaughter, or at the very least with malicious mischief.
Loren, to do a minor nitpick, it’s 32 deaths to date in Samoa. Tragic and awful as that is. In 2018 there was a huge amount of publicity when two infants died as a result of the MMR vaccine. The cause of death was not actually the vaccine, but error by the nurses who mixed vaccine powder with muscle relaxant instead of water (https://www.immune.org.nz/hot-topic/infant-deaths-samoa-tragic-outcome-error-preparing-mmr-vaccine). Of course in addition to the concern about why the infants died (it took time to establish what had happened) anti-vaxers made hay over that. Despicable.
New Zealand has suffered two deaths so far, both unborn children.
Mind you, the population of Samoa must be a tiny fraction of that of DR Congo so as a percentage…
Samoa 196,440 in 2017.
DR Congo 81.34 million in 2017.
Very true. This is a massive health disaster. My sister has colleagues over there at the moment. They’re reporting that compared to previous visits it is very quiet with few people moving around and no groups of children scrambling about playing as would usually be the case.
The government is trying their best to stop the spread and there is a huge vaccination push, with a significant boost by trained vaccinators from NZ. We have been alarmed in NZ by a measles epidemic of around 1300 cases in a population of 5 million. Samoa has had over 2400 cases and 32 dead. Anti-Vaxers are destestable.
And, with the damage the measles does to the immune system, there will be waves of illness and death that aren’t directly traced to measles.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03324-7
@ Rob
#5
Is an unborn child a fetus?
Sure is Colin. 8 weeks till birth.
@ Rob
#11
From 8 weeks to birth it might be a fetus, but is it an unborn child?