UAE has immunised itself against measles resurgence
▶ Statistics prove that compulsory childhood vaccination programme is working
In the century leading up to its eradication in 1980, which was the result of a worldwide vaccination campaign, smallpox killed 300 million people. Experts are now hopeful that measles will meet the same fate, given that the disease can be prevented almost entirely by vaccines. And yet, preliminary data released by the World Health Organisation on Monday paints a different picture. Cases of measles actually rose by 300 per cent globally in the first trimester of 2019, marking an increase for the second consecutive year. Its proliferation, at a time when vaccines are widely available, is cause for enormous concern.
Europe alone has six times more measles cases than the eastern Mediterranean, a region that includes some of Asia’s poorest countries – such as Afghanistan and Pakistan – as well as war-torn Iraq, Syria and Yemen. This phenomenon can partly be attributed to dangerous anti-vaccine propaganda, manufactured and disseminated by conspiracy theorists to discourage parents from inoculating their children. The “anti-vaxxers” claim that vaccines cause autism in children, an allegation based on bogus research that has been debunked countless times by medical professionals. At a time when some countries lack the financial means for widespread vaccination, it is all the more baffling that parents in affluent countries would simply refuse inoculation and, thereby, put others at risk.
The UAE, however, appears immune to this dangerous trend. In 2015, it implemented a compulsory measles vaccination programme for children between one and 18 years old. The nation only recorded nine measles cases in the first three months of 2019, compared with 76 in the same period last year. This policy has made the nation an example for measles prevention. By combining astute health care policy with public awareness campaigns, the UAE has become a safer, healthier place – even as the tide is turning in other parts of the world.