Sep 04 (IPS) – Measles cases are currently on the rise, with epidemiologists reporting that the number of serious or disruptive outbreaks has tripled in the past three years. It is one of the most contagious diseases we know. The virus spreads through respiratory droplets; when an infected person coughs or sneezes, it can stay in the air for two hours and infect 10 other unprotected people.
Most of the estimated 136,000 deaths from measles in 2022 were children under the age of five. Each death is a tragedy, but it is even more tragic if that death could have been prevented by a safe and effective vaccine.
As a pediatrician, I am proud to be involved in vaccines because of their impact on public health. Immunization has accounted for 40% of the observed decline in infant mortality worldwide; it is one of the most remarkable achievements in modern medicine.
Measles vaccination alone has prevented 57 million deaths since the year 2000. But this success does not depend only on the development of effective vaccines; they need to be accessible to everyone.
Having grown up in Colombia, in a time and place where vaccines were not widespread or accessible, and attended medical school there, I unfortunately saw children sick and dying from vaccine-preventable diseases. I even had some of these diseases when I was a child. So, every time my kids get vaccinated, I celebrate (even if they don’t).
Not all parents have this background, and I understand how decisions affecting your child’s health can be scary without them.
My work in vaccine safety also provides insight into the research behind these images. All vaccines undergo rigorous testing in clinical trials, continuous monitoring of side effects, and adherence to strict regulatory standards. There is also strict safety monitoring and data monitoring carried out not only by drug developers but also by national health authorities in each country.
With vaccines, we carefully monitor safety and reactogenicity – the site of the vaccine produces common, short-term side effects that are usually mild, limiting, and often indicate an immune response, such as pain at the injection site, fever. , or fatigue.
We ask clinical trial participants to report daily if they experienced any of these symptoms, how long they lasted, and how severe they were. This information helps inform future vaccine recipients about what to expect. If the reactogenicity is too high and unacceptable, it may be a reason to stop the clinical trial and re-evaluate what needs to be changed to continue the development of that vaccine.
In terms of safety, all adverse events that occur in any participant during the study are carefully evaluated and analyzed to determine which of these events may be related to the vaccine. We ask participants to report all signs and symptoms they may experience during the study, whether they think they are related to the vaccine or not.
Typically, trials include participants who receive the real vaccine and others who receive a placebo. That means the study is “blind” and neither the participants nor the study staff and researchers know who is getting the vaccine or the placebo until the data has been analyzed. This helps us better determine whether adverse events are vaccine-related.
Globally, just under three-quarters of all children under the age of two have received both doses of the measles vaccine when at least 95% are needed to prevent outbreaks. Even worse, an estimated 14.5 million children have not received doses of any vaccines.
There are many sad reasons why, including poor communities not having access to adequate health care and the number of people being forced from their homes. It’s not just people who question the value of vaccines; however, these people had a choice to protect their children and their communities and chose not to.
The statistics are clear, and it’s not just about measles. Polio infections have fallen by 99 percent since 1988, from 350,000 to six in 2021.
The disease is still lagging behind, as vaccination rates, on average 83%, are good but not as good as most areas of a highly contagious disease that can cause irreversible disability.
Pertussis, or whooping cough, is another infectious disease with a significant infant mortality rate, yet it is not actively monitored. The last year WHO has complete data is 2018, when more than 151,000 diseases were recorded. By 2023, an estimated 84% of newborns worldwide received the three recommended doses of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) vaccine, but low-income countries lag behind rich countries in vaccinating their children.
If you take care of the health and well-being of the child, you take care of the future of the whole society. And if that child is able to grow and learn without the threat of disease, the future of both the child and society is much better. This is our goal.
Every parent’s decision to vaccinate their child plays a role, along with every plan and step that makes the decision accessible and successful. Achieving herd immunity is very important, where diseases will not play a role in society because most of the population is already vaccinated. Only high vaccination rates make this future possible.
Daniela Ramirez SchrempMD, is the clinical leader of Pharmacovigilance at the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
Source link
