With a "national incident" over measles in the UK, what’s the situation in Europe?
With a "national incident" over measles in the UK, what’s the situation in Europe?
Europe is experiencing an "alarming rise" in measles cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday, with a more than 30-fold rise across the region in 2023.
More than 30,000 measles cases were reported by 40 of the WHO European region’s 53 member states between January and October last year, compared to 941 cases in 2022.
The increase in the number of cases is compounded by the hospitalisation of 21,000 people and five measles-related deaths.
A fucking pharmacist tried to talk my daughter out of the latest COVID vaccine (which I guess is its own thing and not just a booster). Wtf? This was at Walgreens. I’m proud of my kid, though.
In your shoes, I’d be filing a complaint. An antivaxer has precisely zero business being a pharmacist (or any medical professional). It’s like a mechanic who doesn’t believe in using antifreeze - yeah, most of the time it’s gonna be ok, but it’s gonna straight up not work in multiple completely feasible situations where a normally maintained car would work great.
I’ve had a doctor at a COVID vaccination station trying to talk me out of it. He said that with my age and three prior vaccinations there’s absolutely no benefit. After a few statements like that he admitted that he was required to allow anyone who really insists to get it, though. So that’s what I did.
Maybe maybe having laws and regulations controlling misinformation on social media would be a great thing. Social media have to be accountable for it with huge fines.
A social media isn't free speech or freedom of speech, it's in most case a private company making profits. When someone post something on Facebook or whatever else, it's cognitive work so meta in this case can make profits out of it. It's fine to regulate them on what can and can't be show to the user. These services are the street.
The other important point is to educate people in the schools. We need programs of education to vaccination. It's not magic. Virus and bacteria are still around. We didn't magically kill them with vaccination. We are immune to them being around thanks to vaccines. Next to this, we have to educate on how we develop them too.
An other point is mandatory and free vaccination. Vaccines are too important for the human health. We can't afford people not vaccinating their kids.
I super understand the urge to laugh but then I think of all the babies, cancer victims, organ transplant recipients, and immunocompromised children who cannot get the vaccine and are now at significantly greater risk than a decade ago thanks to anti science wingnuts.
The BBC More or Less podcast looked into it. The problem existed pre COVID and is likely more related to cuts in healthcare funding than anyone being anti vaccines.
Depends on how long it's been. It was thought the series you got as a child was sufficient, but some people lose their immunity in the ensuing decades. Older people are sometimes getting another dose of their titers are low, but I don't know the process to get those levels drawn.
Our medical technology is too good at this point, we can keep the majority of the disease spreaders alive to continue spreading disease on purpose. A sad consequence of technological advancement.
I feel like the only thing that could sound like a more British way to describe an alarming measles outbreak than “national incident” is “a National spot of bother”
The virus practically disappeared in Europe during the COVID-19 lockdowns, but "the overall number of measles cases in the EU/EEA has been steadily increasing since June 2023," the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in its latest weekly threats report.
Last December, the country’s health ministry declared a national measles epidemic following a worrying rise in cases and a high number of hospitalisations among infected children.
Since the announcement, four unvaccinated people - three babies and one adult - died due to measles, according to local media and the National Institute of Public Health.
The UK's health authorities warned last Friday that the surge in the West Midlands could spread to other towns and cities unless urgent action is taken to boost vaccination uptake.
"With vaccine uptake in some communities so low, there is now a very real risk of seeing the virus spread in other towns and cities," said Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UKHSA.
Measles is a highly contagious viral illness that spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes, according to the WHO, and "can cause severe disease, complications, and even death".
The original article contains 700 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!