UNICEF warns of the lack of vaccination of children against measles in recent months, which could lead to a serious epidemic endangering the youngest, more fragile in the face of this viral infection.
“A situation that endangers children”. The World Health Organization and UNICEF warned on Wednesday about “the worrying increase in measles cases in January and February 2022”, an outbreak of cases that could affect “millions of children”, write these two organizations. The Covid-19 epidemic has indeed delayed, or prevented, in several countries the vaccination of children for this infection, against which there is no antiviral treatment.
“The current conditions” are therefore “particularly favorable to an epidemic outbreak of measles, a situation which endangers children”, note the WHO and UNICEF.
Measles is a very contagious disease, one infected person can infect up to 20 people. It is due to a virus which is very easily transmitted by coughing, sneezing and nasal secretions, and which can have serious consequences such as lung, liver and kidney damage, but also neurological complications such as encephalitis. Most deaths attributed to measles are due to complications of the disease.
“One of the major causes of death in young children”
Measles “remains one of the major causes of death in young children, while there is a safe and effective vaccine”, wrote the WHO in 2019recalling that it is “estimated that 89,780 people, the majority of whom were children under the age of 5, died of measles in 2016 (…) Young unvaccinated children are most at risk of measles and potentially life-threatening complications.”
If children are more affected by this virus, it is because, as with other infections, they “are not immune to this disease, they are immune naive”, explains to BFMTV.com the virologist Eric Leroy director of research and member of the National Academy of Medicine. Their younger immune system therefore defends itself less well against this virus that it discovers.
Conversely in France, “adults were vaccinated or had it when they were young, so they are immunized”, explains the virologist, because the protection conferred by the disease or the vaccine is very durable.
This disease is “especially virulent in children under one year old, because they are much more fragile and can have serious forms” with risks of neurological complications or pneumonia, explains to BFMTV.com Brigitte Virey, liberal pediatrician and president of the National Syndicate of French Pediatricians. To curb this infectious disease, since 2018, the French government thus included the measles vaccine among the mandatory vaccines for children under two years old.
In addition to the effects of the disease itself, “the measles virus weakens the immune system and makes the child more vulnerable for several months to other infectious diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea”, recalls Unicef .
“People with comorbidities”
The WHO also points out that severe forms of measles “occur more particularly in young malnourished children, especially if their vitamin A intake is insufficient or if their immune system is weakened by HIV/AIDS or other illnesses”.
“There are indeed age groups more affected, but also people with comorbidities” or fragilities, abounds Eric Leroy. In addition to those under one year old, the people most at risk of serious forms of the disease are “pregnant women” and “immunocompromised subjects”, thus writes the French Ministry of Health.
If “unvaccinated children are the prime target of the virus”, adults are not spared the disease either, Fabienne Kochert, a liberal pediatrician and president of AFPA Neonatology (French association of outpatient pediatrics), told BFMTV.com. They “can also catch measles which can also be serious or even fatal” at home, she explains, “if the epidemic flares up, adults will be infected.”
And “we know that having a childhood illness when you’re an adult is more serious”, abounds Brigitte Virey, citing the examples of chicken pox and measles.
“Update the vaccination schedule”
The only solution known today, and very effective, against measles is vaccination with two doses. According to estimates, “the elimination of measles requires a level of vaccination coverage of 95% in young children”, explains the Ministry of Healthadding that this level has never been reached in France. In 2018, 79% of infants had been vaccinated with the two necessary doses. However, about 90% of measles cases occur in unvaccinated people.
“The message to convey is that we must update the vaccination schedule for all infants and catch up on delays if the vaccines have not been carried out”, says Fabienne Kochert, who adds that adults too ” can check if they have received two doses” of this vaccine.
If France has been able to maintain a correct vaccination activity for children in parallel with Covid-19, other countries have had much more difficulty. In “2020, 23 million children (3.7 million more than in 2019) did not receive basic childhood vaccines as part of routine health services, the highest figure since 2009” , writes UNICEF, which fears epidemics to come.
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