Vaccine efficacy made people abandon them?

The reason for some people to refuse vaccination, as the reason for the anti-vaccination movement in many developed countries, may be the effectiveness of vaccines.

Since modern people don’t see people around them with diseases such as smallpox or diphtheria, they don’t understand which vaccines played a significant role in eradicating these diseases, Karine Abelyan, an expert from World Vision Armenia told NEWS.am Medicine,

“A modern person does not see people with smallpox, does not read in the news that a child died due to diphtheria in a neighboring area. No one today sees children who have become disabled due to polio. Therefore, people have forgotten about what dangerous diseases these are and what role vaccination has played in the fight against them,” he said.

This has already happened in many countries: people have begun to refuse measles vaccination, resulting in outbreaks of the disease in many countries. According to WHO, in the first three months of 2019, the number of measles cases in the world increased by more than 300% compared to the same period last year. To date, measles outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sudan, Thailand and Ukraine. During the first trimester of the current year, more than 112,163 cases of measles were reported in 170 countries, while during the same period in 2018, 28,144 cases of measles were detected in 163 countries. There were many deaths due to measles, especially among young children.

According to the expert, in Armenia there is most likely no risk of measles outbreak today. Although the so-called “imported” cases of this disease are occasionally recorded, most of the children are still vaccinated, so the likelihood that a virus that enters the country along with an incoming patient can spread is very low. But if there are more people not vaccinating their children, this can lead to outbreaks of measles and other diseases - with all the ensuing problems.