Perspective: Preventable diseasesWe Must Talk More about Measles — and Less about Anti-Vaxxers
There are two basic stories we hear when talking about measles: first, that the disease has more or less been eradicated, and second, that it has resurfaced — more than 440,000 cases were reported worldwide between January and November — because of mindless anti-vaxxers who ignore science, mistrust experts, and who spfread misinformation from the comfort of their Internet echo chambers. “Both of these narratives, however, are, at best, partial truths,” Laurence Monnais writes.
There are two basic stories we hear when talking about measles: first, that the disease has more or less been eradicated, and second, that it has resurfaced — more than 440,000 cases were reported worldwide between January and November — because of mindless anti-vaxxers who ignore science, mistrust experts, and who spfread misinformation from the comfort of their Internet echo chambers.
“Both of these narratives, however, are, at best, partial truths,” Laurence Monnais writes in the Washington Post.
Monnais writes that the real threat of measles is the result of the disconnect between what we know about the disease and actual public health practices.
Measles is probably the most contagious human disease we know: One person can contaminate 18 others, compared to just two in the case of the flu. This is why vaccination is so important. But it requires an extremely high rate of immunization, 95 percent, to protect “the herd.” And to be most effective, a vaccine must be given in two doses — raising the bar even higher for achieving this level of immunization.
Therein lies one problem: Many of those who do receive the vaccine don’t get both doses to make it work effectively. In fact, by the end of 2017, only 67 percent of children worldwide had received two doses, which means there are many children and adults who have been inadequately vaccinated. In Ukraine, for example, 44 percent of the 56,000 declared measles cases since 2017 are adults improperly vaccinated in the 1970s and 1980s.
Monnais writes that Vaccination is one of the greatest medical achievements of modern civilization,
But it is not a panacea, and anti-vaxxers, for all the damage they do, are not the only culprits in the revival of measles.
Vaccines are neither “universal technical fixes” nor “simple solutions,” nor can they be reduced to hashtags (#VaccinesWork). Measles prevention is suffering as a (global) public health initiative. And the virus will continue to “come back” as long as we ignore the complex dimensions of this initiative and its complicated history.
