Measles, how many children die each year?
In 2019 there was a surge in cases worldwide (with 207 thousand deaths, 600 infections in Italy between January and March: vaccination coverage had dropped
This is the question that Dr. Maurizio Zanda always asks mothers who confide in him the fear of vaccinating their children: "Do you know how many children die of measles every year?". Three hundred thousand, says the director of the pediatric complex at the Brotzu hospital in Cagliari. “Now they will be a little less: 200, 150 thousand, and for one simple reason: vaccination programs have been brought to Africa. But, when there is a vaccine available, even the death of a single child from such a stupid disease is something inadmissible ».
He convinces many of them, Dr. Zanda. «It is a job that we pediatricians do: we are used to talking about vaccines and we know which diseases they have eliminated. Diseases such as polio, smallpox, measles, diphtheria. My father told me about children who died of diphtheria in his time, while I, thanks to the vaccine, in thirty years of experience I have never seen any ».
There is the vaccine, goodbye, but we have seen how little it takes for measles to be scary again. In 2019 there was a surge in cases worldwide (with 207 thousand deaths, according to a study by the World Health Organization and the CDC, the Public Health Control Centers in the United States), 600 infections in Italy among January and March. What happened? The vaccination coverage had dropped, a backlash of the ideas of many no vax parents.
The Lorenzin law of 2017 - which imposed the vaccination obligation for chicken pox, whooping cough, haemophilus, rubella, mumps and, in fact, measles; adding them to diphtheria, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B already foreseen in the pediatric calendar - it had not yet unfolded its effects. Without the vaccine, younger children cannot be enrolled in the nursery and kindergarten, while for the parents of children from primary up to 16 years, penalties of up to 500 euros are foreseen - yet there were those who resisted.
Today is better. In 2020, notes the Higher Institute of Health, “in Italy 103 cases of measles were reported in twelve regions: 52 in January, 42 in February, 9 in March; no new cases have been reported since April ". In Sardinia no case, and it will also depend on anti Covid hygiene measures (lockdowns and masks that have also canceled the flu) but the credit goes to the increase in vaccination coverage: if in 2014 88 percent of children were immunized , now we have reached 93%, therefore two percentage points are missing from the 95% shield necessary, according to the WHO, to achieve herd immunity. In between we have a constant decrease in infections, from 100 cases in 2014 to 45 in 2017, to eight in '18 and '19.
"What we pediatricians have seen with our own eyes should ensure that no one has any doubts or fears about vaccines," says Maurizio Zanda. He also tells undecided and fearful mothers why doctors like him, those who treat children, are no longer afraid of two particular periods of the year, spring and autumn. «September and October, March and April. In my department I warned the younger colleagues: beware that now meningitis arrives, and they arrived on time. This is no longer the case thanks to vaccines: in recent years we will have seen yes and no two cases ». A relief and a hope. “For 30 years we have seen children die of meningitis. Children who were fine in the morning, were in school and kindergarten, arrived at the hospital and died within two hours. Sure, most of us managed to heal and heal them, but seeing a baby go away in a couple of hours is a devastating experience for everyone, let alone a mother. A lot has changed now: we haven't seen hemophilic meningitis, which babies have at birth, for 25 years. Meningococcal meningitis remained for many years, very rare but devastating. Well, when the meningococcal C vaccine came out, we stopped seeing this type of infection. We have also had the meningococcal B vaccine for five or six years ».
As for the Covid vaccine, while in Sardinia there is the national record of administrations in the age group of adolescents over 12 years, the pediatrician hopes that "it will soon be available also for younger children. There are studies well underway, we have to wait for the authorities to give the green light, but I can't wait ».
There is a fear in particular confided by undecided mothers. They speak of "a vaccine bomb", they express the fear of an immunological overload for children who receive, from an early age, the antigens of varicella, pertussis, haemophilus, rubella, mumps, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B. «They are forced to do them all together, they tell me. Luckily, I say, because they don't have to do six separate injections. There is no problem for children. The immune system is used to encountering hundreds of antigens every day, ie the substances that stimulate their response. Let's just think of the fact that, at less than a year old, children go to the nursery and among many peers they soon come into contact with viruses. A number of viruses well above the six vaccine antigens ».
