Sultangazi Haseki Training and Research Hospital Chief Physician Prof. Dr. Mine Gürsaç Çelik pointed out that vaccination is of great importance in order to protect the whole society, especially children.
Assoc. Prof. Administrative Officer of the Hospital’s Child Health and Diseases Clinic. Dr. Kamil Şahin and Specialist from Newborn Intensive Care Unit. Dr. Burcu Cebeci also stated that after the vaccine rejections, they started to see cases that they had not seen for a long time. Assoc. Dr. Şahin and Dr. Cebeci stated that they encountered cases of measles and whooping cough in newborns and warned citizens by stating that there were babies with life-threatening conditions whose treatment continued in intensive care.
“IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR US TO TALK ABOUT THE PANDEMIC AT THE MOMENT”
Stating that citizens should listen to the advice of doctors, Sultangazi Haseki Training and Research Hospital Chief Physician Prof. Dr. Mine Gürsaç Çelik said, “Currently, there are around 30 thousand vaccine refusals. If this vaccine rejection pushes 100, 150 thousand people, it may put us and our health system in a difficult situation. It is not possible for us to talk about an epidemic at the moment, but if vaccine rejection reaches 100 thousand, we may face such a danger.
Not vaccinating may be people’s own choice, but if their unvaccinated children come into contact with other children in the environment, they will be putting other children at risk. Maybe they don’t know this at all, and the aim of us healthcare professionals is to announce this. Please be sensitive, let’s get vaccinated on time, let’s protect our own children, other children and society. I request this in view of the problems that may occur in the future or the burden it may impose on our healthcare system. Since the vaccination program does not start during the newborn period, adults should also be vaccinated at that point. Protection of newborns depends on adults being vaccinated. “If everyone is vaccinated in childhood and even their relatives are vaccinated with the cocoon strategy, we are talking about adult vaccination, that’s the only way we can protect those newborns,” he said.
“WE HAVE AN 11-MONTH-OLD PATIENT IN ICU, WHO HAS NOT BEEN VACCINATED, AND IS AT THE RISK OF DEATH.”
Assoc. Prof., Administrative Officer of the Pediatric Clinic, stated that if the rate of vaccine rejection increases, many epidemics may occur and negative consequences may occur. Dr. Kamil Şahin continued his words as follows: “Unfortunately, there are occasional cases of measles, which we did not see frequently in previous years. Some of these are unvaccinated patients, and due to vaccine rejection, which reaches 30 thousand in Turkey, we have started to see these cases, albeit sporadically. The only way to be protected is to either get the disease.” To provide immunity, or you will be vaccinated. With a small injection, you are actually protected against diseases that can kill and have very bad consequences. If we talk about measles, if a patient with measles passes through the corridor coughing, 90 percent of the time it will infect unvaccinated individuals. Unfortunately, it is not clear how the disease will progress. In 30 percent of cases, “There may be cases that lead to pneumonia, unfortunately there are also cases that result in death. Vaccination refusals should not increase, families should be aware of the importance of these and get vaccinated. Measles starts just like the flu, with fever, cough, runny nose, redness in the eyes and unfortunately it continues to infect during this period.” Families send them to school saying ‘my child has the flu’, but after 4-5 days the rash appears. If there are many sensitive individuals, it infects all the people it comes into contact with, thus causing rapid spread. If the mother is or has been vaccinated, antibodies passed from the mother can protect babies between 3-9 months, but this may be different for each baby. This protection is less in those born prematurely. However, if the mother is unvaccinated, measles can also be seen in the newborn period. This is of course rarer and different from whooping cough. There are cases of whooping cough and measles in our hospital. Currently, we have an 11-month-old patient in our clinic who has not yet been vaccinated and whose risk of death continues in the intensive care unit. “If vaccine rejection increases too much, we may see many epidemics in the future in Turkish society and many children may die.”
“WE HAD TWO CASES DIAGNOSED WITH WHOOPING CALL”
Specialist from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit warned by saying, “The winter period is actually the period with the highest number of cases in the pediatric group, especially in terms of infectious diseases.” Dr. Burcu Cebeci said, “The symptoms of many diseases that cause upper respiratory tract infections can be confused with each other, but the feature of whooping cough is that it presents with a very persistent choking cough, in addition to others, and this situation causes respiratory arrest that can cause severe hypoxia. Until now, whooping cough was not a disease we encountered very often in the newborn period, but this year we had 2 admissions to our intensive care unit with a diagnosis of whooping cough. Unfortunately, as the age range decreases, the clinical course of the disease and the risk of death increase inversely. We can say that not only premature babies but even full-term babies are at risk. When we show what these diseases can cause later and explain the diseases, we actually regret all of them and then give up this idea and send their children to the necessary centers to have them vaccinated again. Actually the biggest problem here is; “Since we have been vaccinated against these diseases and have not seen them before, they do not know their consequences clearly,” he said.
“WE STARTED TO SEE CASES WE HAVE NEVER SEEN”
Dr. said that as the age of babies decreases, the risk of co-morbid diseases increases. Cebeci said, “There are reported mortality rates of up to 60-70 percent, especially in the neonatal period. Currently, we are monitoring one of our babies on a ventilator because his clinical condition is getting worse. Once it exceeds a certain number, we have no chance of blocking it anyway. Until about 4-5 years ago, we were seeing almost no cases of whooping cough. In recent years, as the number of vaccine rejection cases has increased, we have gradually started to see cases that we have never seen before. Even if there is no death, if the baby goes through a very severe lung failure, there may be complications such as being oxygen dependent, being cared for at home with a ventilator, or continuing with lifelong chronic lung disease. Since we cannot protect our newborn babies by vaccinating them because they are not of calendar age, our most important weapon is their environment, starting from their families, and we have the chance to prevent diseases by protecting them. No family should be complacent by saying ‘Nothing will happen to my baby’, this risk applies to everyone. We monitor these babies by placing them in single incubators with contact isolation. Of course, the number of rooms where these conditions and contact isolation are met is at a certain capacity in each unit. Therefore, with the increase in the number of cases, it is very likely that the units will have problems with the places they should allocate for these babies, depending on the care of these patients, their length of stay, and the duration of their treatment. “Especially babies with negative pressure, who need contact isolation, need to be dressed specially, wear a mask and be cared for,” he said.
(UAV)
