translated from Spanish: Resurgence of measles in America and Europe

to two years that the American continent was declared as “free zone of endemic measles”, various countries in the region, including Mexico, have registered outbreaks of the disease, particularly in 2018, the health crisis in Venezuela resulted in the resurgence of the virus and its rapid expansion, which has already spread to 11 American Nations, according to the World Health Organization (who).
But what so protected is the Mexican population? By itself, measles is considered a “benign prostatic disease”, however, causes “transient immunosuppression”, i.e. temporary weakening of the body’s natural defenses, causing “severe complications” such as pneumonia, diarrhea acute or encephalitis, which can lead to the death of the patient, in addition that, for those who do not die, does cause permanent sequelae such as deafness.
The only way to prevent measles, according to the World Health Organization, is using the preventive method of vaccination, but in Mexico, at least 18% of the population born since 1990, until now, never received the vaccine.
As it reveals the first national survey of boys, girls and women (whose results were presented by the Mexican authorities in 2017), measles vaccination coverage is 81.9%.
According to the who, a vaccination campaign is to be effective should give homogeneous coverage, at least 95% of the population.
Until three decades ago, Mexico was a country where every year tens of thousands of cases of measles were registered (only in 1990 there were almost 70 thousand affected), but six years later, in 1996, this disease, in its native type, “virtually disappear” in the country , such as the National Institute of public health reports.
The decrease in the incidence of measles in Mexico is directly related to the home, in 1990, of the program of Universal vaccination, which is kept up to date; However, never has been this campaign to give proactive coverage to all Mexican children.
In fact, according to the national survey of children, girls and women, in Mexico only 34% of children have all recommended vaccines, which makes the Mexican population whole (not just from childhood) vulnerable to the measles virus, which in 2018 has been u n continental regrowth, the health crisis caused by the lack of drugs in Venezuela.
Between January 1 and August 11, 2018, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported the existence of at least 3 thousand 177 confirmed cases of measles in the Mainland, of whom, mil 842 cases (58% of the total) were concentrated in Venezuela.
PAHO reports reveal, in addition, that the Venezuelan influx caused by the political crisis in that country, also favored the expansion of measles to other countries on the continent.
According to reports from PAHO, after Venezuela, the second country with more cases of measles in the Americas is their neighbor Brazil, with 1,100 people who are sick, in this year alone. Of these, 661 cases (60% of the total) were pictures of measles “of a lineage that is identical to the identified in Venezuela”, as it reveals the most recent continental epidemiological report.
The same thing happened in Colombia, also a receiver of the exodus of Venezuelans, where the 56 confirmed cases of measles were all linked to an “imported” virus.
In Mexico, the Pan American Health Organization reported that, in what goes year-round, five “imported” measles cases have been confirmed.
Unwary, unbelieving, and excluded the expansion of measles in the Americas, once declared their elimination, not only can be attributed to the lack of medicines or the social crisis in Venezuela. The first cause that allows the prevalence of this disease is the failure in vaccination coverage that presents each country since, to be total coverage, this would slow down the “imported” measles outbreaks.
In United States, for example, the Centre for the Control and prevention of diseases (CDC) reported that you between January 1 and July 14, 2018, 107 cases of measles were detected in that country and, stood the majority of people who co ntrajeron disease “were not vaccinated”.
Although in the United States was declared the Elimination of measles since the year 2000, different outbreaks (some with over 660 cases) have been reported since then. The cause, said the CDC, which belongs to the U.S. Government, is that disease is entering the United States, through its ports, and its expansion is facilitated between people without coverage.
In 2014 and 2015, for example, when the largest outbreak of measles in the United States, health authorities pointed to Philippines as point of origin of the travellers who carried the virus to their territory.
That same outbreak, in fact, put in evidence the vulnerability caused by the omission of vaccinations, as measles could spread easily among the amish of United States community, whose members do not accept the application of vaccines, according to a principle religious.
In 2014, among the American amish community were recorded 383 cases of measles, which represents more than half of the cases reported in all United States that year.
In Europe, in addition, the World Health Organization reported that in the first six months of 2018, confirmed measles cases have almost doubled the number of patients registered in 2017.
On 21 August, who reported that, in Europe, van 41 thousand cases of measles so far in 2018, while the prior year cases totaled 24 thousand, what was described as a “dramatic increase” by the regional director of the world Organization of salt UD in the continent, Zsazsanna Jakab, according to the same news report.
These 41 thousand cases have been presented in France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine, who concentrated most of the confirmed infections, with 23 thousand patients, while Serbia is the country with more cases of death, with 14 deaths.
According to the who, Europe boasts a 90% measles vaccine coverage, although this is an average, since, he noted, while some regions of the continent reach required minimum 95% coverage, in others only will reach reaching 70% of the population on.
In Europe, notably, they have proliferated in recent years groups opposed to the use of vaccines, which operate under different premises, including the charge that these which are hooks designed by the pharmaceutical industry to generate captive customers, thus as the hypothesis that the immune system can be strengthened by other means that are not disabled virus inoculation, such as healthy eating.

Original source in Spanish