Increasing cases of measles in Europe with 26,000 between January and October

Geneva, 2 Dec (EFE).-Europe faces numerous outbreaks of measles and in the first ten months of the year there were 26,000 cases in 36 countries, of which 83 per cent in Western Europe, where reported nine deaths and more than 7,000 hospitalizations, reported today the who.

The World Health Organization (who) pointed out that the spread of measles has serious consequences for public health and the economy and urged European countries to prevent new outbreaks in 2012, through immunization campaigns to reach adults and adolescents (seven out of ten infected has more than ten years).

These are the two groups including measles has spread more easily (90 per cent of cases), by which the organization recommended vaccination of children born after 1980 who have not been immunized or who did not receive the reinforcement recommended.

The European country most affected by measles is France, where there were six of the nine deaths caused this year by the disease, highly contagious.

Who stated that preventive measures must be taken quickly, before the proximity of the typical season for the transmission of measles, which runs from February to may.

The level of spread that this year it has been observed in Europe only is behind in the same period in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where there were 100,000 cases.

However, European cases outweigh the 15,000 who were detected together in Nigeria and Somalia.

Moreover, the high circulation of the virus of measles in Europe is more concerned because it is associated to outbreaks in countries in other regions, such as Brazil, Canada and Australia.

Is also responsible for – along with imported cases in Asia — in most cases in United States, where so far for 2011 has been the largest number of persons infected with measles since 1996.

As recommended by who, the priority is the immunization of the main groups of risk.

Also suggests that young children in day care are vaccinated at nine months instead of twelve, as usual.

The organization stressed that controlling the spread of measles is extremely costly and gave as an example the case of a person with this disease who travelled in 2008 of Switzerland to us and which resulted in seven cases in Arizona.

The situation affected two hospitals and the containment and prevention measures that had to adopt cost 800,000 dollars, amount that would have enabled buy 2.5 million doses of vaccines for developing countries. EFE