- As the South Pacific nation of Samoa has found to its cost, prevention of infectious diseases such as measles is better than cure
Hong Kong's high vaccination rate protects it against a global outbreak of measles, which can kill and cause severe health complications. Medical authorities quickly halted a surge in cases early this year among airport and aviation personnel. As a result, to the end of October, the city had only 87 cases this year, compared with 10 million worldwide last year that killed 140,000, mostly young children who had not been vaccinated. The World Health Organisation expects a threefold increase this year.
What that means for child mortality is shocking. "The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is an outrage," says WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus. We share that sentiment. Under-vaccination of the population at large opens the door to measles. The WHO says vaccination rates have stagnated for nearly a decade. Under-vaccination tends to be most prevalent in poor countries, but resistance is to be found in wealthier nations, too, for religious or philosophical reasons, or because of mistrust of authority and myths about links to autism.
65 dead before Christmas as anti-vaxxers fuel Samoa measles epidemic
Medical experts say the battle to contain the global surge in measles infections has been complicated by the expansion of a vocal anti-vaccination movement. It has been accused of seizing on fear and ignorance and distrust in health services to peddle science-denial nonsense, increasing its presence and raising its profile with well-known names who believe the vaccine is linked to autism.
Contrary to claims, measles is not a nutritional issue and cannot be cured by high doses of vitamins or ocean swimming. The perniciousness of this irresponsible talk is to be found in the severity of the measles outbreak in the South Pacific nation of Samoa, which has infected nearly 4,700 of what was a poorly vaccinated population of 200,000 and killed more than 70, of whom more than 60 were children aged four years or younger. Thankfully, as a result of a crash programme, the government now reports a vaccination rate of about 90 per cent. Measles is so infectious that in a crowded environment such as Hong Kong, under-vaccination would be a health disaster. The city's virtual infection-free status is a reminder that prevention of infectious disease is better than cure.
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