Ignore the anti-vaxxers, stop the measles virus

There are two things you need to know about measles beyond the facts that they are exceptionally contagious, surprisingly common and potentially deadly, especially to infants and young children.

You should know a safe, effective vaccine can almost always protect us all against this proven scourge.

And then you should realize that partly because anti-vaxxers have convinced more and more gullible people to refuse this vaccination, this dangerous virus is making an unexpected, entirely unwanted comeback around the world.

This should not be happening. In the early 1960s an estimated 2.6 million people around the world died each year from measles. Thanks to vaccines that have been available since 1963, cases of measles trended downward — until 2016. Since then, sadly, the virus has been on a tear, alarming not only health officials but those who have personally suffered the heartbreaking consequences.

The World Health Organization last week warned efforts to halt the spread of measles are “backsliding” and that cases of the illness worldwide leapt by 50 per cent last year. While all the 2018 data aren’t in, the WHO said it had been informed of 229,000 reported cases, compared to 170,000 in 2017.

Pneumonia, severe diarrhea and vision loss were among the serious consequences for those who contracted measles. Even worse were the 136,000 deaths from measles reported to the WHO last year from around the world.

As might be expected, the virus ravaged developing countries such as Chad, Sierra Leone and Madagascar, which has reported 922 deaths in the past four months alone. But it’s also bad in Europe, which in 2018 experienced the highest number of measles cases in the past 20 years.

Reports of measles are surging in the United

States, too, in New York State and Washington State, the latter which reported 54 cases this month. The fears are that neighbouring British Columbia could also be vulnerable to an outbreak. Indeed, health experts in Canada say this entire country could experience an increased number of measles cases.

Is all this scaring you? If so, good. The reason measles are becoming more common is that fewer people are being vaccinated against the disease. The most effective way to prevent outbreaks of measles is to have 95 per cent or more of the population inoculated against the virus.

But immunization rates are plunging in many areas. In Manitoba, only 66 per cent of two-year-olds are up-to-date for all vaccines. In B.C. it’s just 73 per cent. In Quebec, 85 per cent — still too low,

And so it goes: After vaccination rates in France, Italy and Romania fell, measles outbreaks soared.

Why these vaccination rates have dropped in such affluent, developed and supposedly educated societies is also obvious. The misguided, unfounded, antiscientific anti-vaccination movement has found willing and naïve converts.

In a new twist on this campaign of deliberate misinformation, populist, right-wing politicians in some parts of Europe have perpetuated the bogus claim that large drug companies are disseminating viruses into the population in order to sell vaccines.

We know that in this era of social media, ever-proliferating sources of information and, of course, intentional fake news, it can be hard to know who to trust.

We would say trust Canada’s public health officials and medical authorities. Get informed about the devastating harm measles can cause, especially to the young. And get everyone vaccinated.