The two-dose measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that helps protect five-year-olds from measles, mumps and rubella is 85.5 percent.
That’s a 10-year low, well below the 95 percent recommended target to stop a measles resurgence.
Measles can cause much more contagious and serious diseases than Covid.
Measles can cause a marked rash on the body, as well as serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis, and can sometimes be fatal.
Almost all of these risks can be eliminated by vaccination.
Two doses of MMR vaccine provide 99% protection against measles and rubella, and approximately 88% against mumps.
When a large part of the population is protected by vaccines, transmission of the disease becomes difficult.
VACCINE RATE DECREASED DURING THE COVID EPIDEMIC
But since the start of the Covid epidemic, there has been an alarming decline in the number of children receiving these vaccines on time.
The coverage of the first dose of the vaccine in two-year-olds is now below 90 percent. This means that one in 10 children under the age of five are not fully protected from measles and are at risk of contracting it.
93.7 percent of all five-year-olds in England have received one dose and 85.5 percent have received the two recommended doses.
In 2017, the World Health Organization announced that the United Kingdom had eradicated measles; this meant that the disease did not spread widely, although some cases could still occur.
Measles remains more common in some other countries; ie there is a possibility of it returning to the UK and spreading in unvaccinated persons.
In 2017, there were 284 measles cases in the UK; It lost its measles eradication status in 2018, with the number of cases in England and Wales climbing to 991.
THE NUMBER OF CASE DROPPED DURING THE EPIDEMIC
Measles cases have dropped drastically during the Covid pandemic due to social distancing and less travel.
But the UK Health Security Agency is concerned that measles could return in the unvaccinated once restrictions are lifted completely.
She asks parents to make sure their child’s vaccinations are complete.
“It’s never too late for children, teenagers and young adults to get the MMR vaccine and can get a second dose even if it’s been a long time since the first dose,” says Professor Helen Bedford, PhD, from the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in London.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that although measles was declared eradicated in the US in 2000, close to 1300 cases were detected in 31 states in 2019, the highest figure since 1992.
According to the data of the Ministry of Health in Turkey, the incidence of infectious diseases in 2020 (per 100,000 population) decreased compared to 2019, from 3.49 to 0.74.