Portal de Murcia
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Murcia has not registered any cases of measles in 20 years or rubella in 10 years.
The Councilor for Sports and Health, Felipe Coello, presented this information this morning with the Head of Health Service, Eduardo González, and the Head of Vaccines, José Luis Olivares.
In 2017, the World Health Organization declared that Spain has eliminated measles, after a period of 36 months without endemic transmission (2014, 2015 and 2016).
The Councilor for Sports and Health, Felipe Coello, explained that “the municipality has behaved as a safe place, with a solid group immunity, provided by the excellent vaccination coverage and a great response capacity of the health system.
Since 1999, about 100,000 cases of measles have been avoided. ”
Measles is an infectious, contagious disease, which until recently, almost all people contracted at some time in their lives, usually in childhood.
It was presented in the form of epidemic waves, every 2-3 years, practically all children born after the last epidemic wave became ill.
For most it was a week of prostration, with a very high fever and great weakness, but some suffered complications, such as severe diarrhea, blindness, pneumonia, encephalitis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, it is estimated that one death occurs for every 1,000 cases.
It is still an endemic-epidemic disease in many countries, and according to WHO it still produces about 100,000 deaths a year, mostly in underdeveloped countries.
In Europe, most cases are concentrated in Ukraine, Romania and Albania.
Countries like France, United Kingdom and Italy still suffer major outbreaks.
There was a first monovalent measles vaccine that began to be used in 1963, but which in Spain and Murcia had an almost zero impact on the epidemiology of the disease.
In 1981, the Triple Viral (Measles, Rubella and Mumps) was introduced in the vaccination calendar, in the following years the expansion of the health system, with the development of primary care and computerized vaccination programs, resulted in a rapid increase in vaccination coverage, which rose in figures around 90% in the eighties, 95% in the nineties and 98% in the two thousand years.
The decline of the disease began in the 90's and the number of cases was drastically reduced, until in 1999 a single case was declared in the municipality of Murcia, 20 years without endemic transmission.
Since then, measles has been reintroduced three times in the municipality of Murcia, with cases imported from Barcelona, ​​Almeria and Elche, cities where large outbreaks were occurring.
The most important occurred in 2012 with three cases in the same family, being the index case imported from Elche.
As for rubella, in 2016 the WHO declared that Spain had eliminated this disease, after a period of 36 months without endemic transmission (2013, 2014 and 2015).
In the municipality of Murcia no case of rubella has been declared since 2008, the year in which a single case was declared.
There are 10 years of zero incidence, and since then about 50,000 cases of rubella have been avoided, having completely disappeared congenital rubella embryopathy.
The Triple Viral vaccine contains the antigens against measles, rubella and mumps, which is why vaccine coverage has been identical since 1981 for measles and rubella.
Coello explained that “the disappearance of these diseases in a territory like the municipality of Murcia, with 440,000 inhabitants, for so long, constitutes a historical milestone, a test of the progress of the city as an increasingly safe and healthy place for its inhabitants .
This has been achieved thanks to the collaborative work between the Vaccination Service of the Department of Health of the City Council, the Pediatrics Services in the Health Centers and all administrations, in addition to the exemplary behavior of citizens, who rely on a health public who is proud to have one of the best pediatric and pediatric nursing services in the world. ”
Source: Ayuntamiento de Murcia
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