MEXICO CITY (EFE). Although the outbreak of measles is epidemic only in Europe, there is a presence of the disease in the Americas in 11 countries, according to specialists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to make a series of preventative recommendations. to do.
The experts said that the situation in Mexico is dominated by the high coverage of vaccination, which reaches 95% of the population, says academics from the Faculty of Medicine of UNAM.
"The outbreak of measles in Europe is due to the lack of vaccination," said Jorge Baruch Díaz Ramírez, head of the Traveling & Preventive Care Clinic (CAPV).
"This condition is viral and highly contagious: on average nine out of ten people get in direct contact with a sick person and it is deadly because three out of ten who cancel the contract."
He also said that it has an impact on the quality of life because of the seven that survives, three are left with debilitating and serious neurological consequences. "
The specialist said that 5,000 cases had been reported in 11 countries in North and South America until 25 August; the most important are Venezuela, with 3,500, where the endemic transmission has also been restored, and Brazil, which already has 1,200 cases and the United States more than one hundred.
Baruch Díaz said that outside the Atlantic and the Pacific, the 10 countries with the most cases in the past 12 months, according to the World Health Organization: India, Ukraine, Philippines, Nigeria, Yemen, Serbia, Indonesia, China, Congo and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Guadalupe Soto, from the Department of Public Health of the same faculty, explained that one of the rebound assumptions "is due to the disinformation campaign of activists in Italy, so that children are not immunized, arguing that the consequences are older The same thing happens with diseases such as whooping cough and diphtheria. "
Measles are not common in Mexico, because vaccination has been able to reduce mortality by more than 84 percent since 1992, due to the fact that it was included in the vaccination system.
Academics explained that the first dose is applied for 12 months and grants an immunity of 95%, but a second dose must be applied after six years to reach 100%.
"People who have had the disease at a certain stage of their life do not need a new dose because the risk is zero because they are being immunized for life," Soto said.
In Mexico free vaccination is guaranteed in the public sector and in the private sector the cost varies between 300 and 900 pesos, between 16 and 47 dollars.
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