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More than 80,000 are European citizens who got sick of measles during 2018. Over 70 deaths happened due to this disease, which is 33 more than 2017, according to the World Health Organization and the European Center for Prevention and Disease Control.
Representatives of the two organizations are concerned because the number of infected people continues to grow at the beginning of the current year in several countries, such as Bulgaria, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Ireland. Measles is a disease that can cause further problems. Usually they have to do with the intestinal system, the hearing, the lungs, and the brain, while the mortality is 1: 1000. A pregnant woman with measles may lose her baby or give birth prematurely. The neurological problems caused by measles may appear several years later. Therefore, according to epidemiologists, anyone who does not have allergies, immune diseases or other contraindications should be immunized to preserve this way both himself and others who for one or other reason are not immunized.On the occasion of the European Week of Immunization / 24-30 April / there was an actual statistic showing that the cases of measles in Bulgaria are 497. More (146) are sick in Sofia district. It is being eliminaterd the hearth in the Blagoevgradir district, but is spreading in the Sofia region. Although citizens aged 18 and under are covered by health insurance by the state and the vaccines are included in these insurance, there are children who have not been immunized, as the health inspector Angell Kunchev said to Bulgarian state media:
"7% of children did not receive their first measles vaccine at the age of 13 months, while 13% did not receive the second vaccine at the age of 12. The next is the question of when we begin the analysis of these groups - who and why did not got the vaccine, the reasons for that are dozens. It is about the Roma community and the parents who have a negative attitude towards the vaccine," said Kuncev, adding that to the Roma population, which accounts for 76% of cases of measles, the most common problem is the difficulty of finding the children and with their vaccination, but in general they are not against vaccination. Totally different is the attitude of representatives of anti-vaccine movements in general. According to the inspector, the influence of these activists on other parents should be limited. As for the dead as a result of vaccination, the arguments with which the vaccine opponents support their thesis, if such information is to be sent to the Medication Agency for the necessary control, is categorical dr. Kuncev.
The representative of the European Office of the World Health Organization Siddhartha Sankar Dattas stressed that the effect of a vaccination may be only positive, because there are many examples of how the vaccines has treated the sickness, and because of the vaccination very dangerous diseases have disappeared and even forgotten in Europe as polio for example. He appealed to Bulgarian media and politicians to more actively inform society about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.