As the health care system shook during Corona 19, as many as 40 million children around the world were found to have failed to get the measles vaccine.
“Record numbers of children without immunity to measles show that the defense system has been severely damaged during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said CDC Director Rochelle Wolensky.
Last year, 9 million people were infected with measles worldwide and 128,000 people died.
There is no specific treatment for measles, and two doses of the vaccine can prevent 97% of serious illness or death.
Earlier, the United Nations also said in July that 25 million children had not been vaccinated, including against diphtheria, due to COVID-19.
Currently, the vaccination rate among American infants and toddlers under the age of two is about 90.4%, far below the minimum defense level of 95%.
Earlier, the United States declared measles eradication in 2000, and there were cases of infection of 649 people in unvaccinated areas in New York in 2018 due to local epidemics introduced from abroad.
According to a paper published in July, more than 13% of children are vulnerable to measles as measles vaccination has declined during the pandemic in the United States.
In particular, the fact that about 20 unvaccinated children were infected in Columbus, Ohio, and about half were hospitalized, “could be an ominous sign to come,” a public health professor at Emory University in Atlanta diagnosed.
According to India’s PTI news agency, in Mumbai, the largest economic city, 12 people died of measles this year, including an 8-month-old baby who died on the 22nd. Including this, the number of measles cases in Mumbai this year was 233, a significant increase from last year’s total of 92.
Mumbai’s health authorities said about 20,000 people were not vaccinated against measles in time because of the pandemic.
The federal government’s Ministry of Health has dispatched emergency support and investigation personnel to related areas, saying that measles patients are also appearing in northern Bihar and western Gujarat.