Number of people diagnosed with measles in Europe and Bulgaria up

Over 80,000 European citizens were diagnosed with measles (water pox) in 2018. The number of fatalities related to this disease exceeded 70 last year, which was 33 more as compared to the previous 2017, the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control announced. Representatives of the two organizations are quite worried, because the number of people affected by measles continues to increase in the beginning of 2018 in some EU countries such as Bulgaria, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Ireland. Measles is a disease which may cause complications. These complications are mainly associated with parts of the digestive system, the hearing, the respiratory system and the brain and the fatality rate is 1/1000. The pregnant women infected by measles risk losing their baby or deliver prematurely. The neurological problems caused by measles may occur two years later. That is why epidemiologists advise all people who are not suffering from any allergies or immune illnesses to receive measles vaccines, in order to prevent themselves and the people who for one reason or another have not received such vaccines yet.

A total of 479 cases of measles were registered in Bulgaria, the latest statistics on occasion of the European Immunization Week (April 24-30) shows. 146 Bulgarians were diagnosed with measles in Sofia District. The number of people affected my measles in Blagoevgrad district have decreased, but the number of Bulgarians diagnosed with measles in Sofia-City and Sofia District has gone up. Although the Bulgarians aged 18 or under do not pay health insurance contributions and the state authorities provide the mandatory vaccines free of charge, some children did not receive immunization, the Chief State Health Inspector Angel Kunchev told Radio Bulgaria and added: 

7% of the Bulgarian children have not received their first measles vaccine when they turned 13 months and 13% of them have not received the second measles vaccine when they turned twelve. We would find dozens of reasons when we start analyzing these groups of people-who and why has not received measles vaccine. We are talking about the children of the Roma ethnicity and the children whose parents are against vaccination, Angel Kunchev specified and added that 76% of all unimmunized children are from the Roma ethnicity. These children did not receive their mandatory vaccines, because the competent authorities had difficulties finding these children, but as a whole they do not have negative attitude towards vaccination.

However, the representatives of the so-called anti-vaccination movements show completely different attitude and it takes a lot of time to explain the benefits of vaccines to these groups. In Angel Kunchev’s words, the influence of these activists over the other parents should be restricted. Supporters of anti-vaccination movements contend that some people die after vaccination, but they have to provide this information for verification to the Bulgarian Drug Agency with the Bulgarian Ministry of Health, Doctor Angel Kunchev says.

The Representative of the European Office of the World Health Organization Dr. Siddhartha Sankar Datta pointed out that the vaccination can have only positive effect, because thanks to vaccines many diseases such as poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) have been successfully treated. He called on the media and the politicians to inform more actively the society about the efficiency and the safety of the vaccines.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov