Two new cases of measles after 18 years generate alarm and worry

After confirming two new cases of measles treated in the last hours in the hospitals of City of Buenos Aires, the Ministry of Health of the Nation issued an epidemiological alert yesterday. The people affected were a five-month-old baby from the federal capital, who started showing symptoms on July 12, and a six-month-old girl from Buenos Aires province who had fever and rashes the next day [19659003]. They had compatible symptoms (fever, rash, cough and conjunctivitis) and, to date, they show a good evolution. Both cases have been confirmed by serology and detection of the viral genome ", reported Thursday the Ministry of Health in charge of Adolfo Rubinstein, who ordered control actions in the corresponding areas and research is in course to determine the source of infection

"The day of the date (Thursday) confirmation of 2 cases of measles attended in the city of Buenos Aires is received. Faced with this situation and the general epidemiological context, the Ministry of Health of the Nation urges the health teams to verify the vaccination status of the population, to sensitize the epidemiological surveillance of febrile exanthematous diseases and to respond quickly and to adequately in the identification of suspected cases, "said the official report.

In our country, the last case of endemic measles was recorded in 2000. Since then, there have been 32 imported cases. The last three took place in the federal capital: two were imported and one was connected to a person who traveled abroad.

Faced with this, the health authorities are currently studying whether the latter two cases are related to importation, that is, if children, who have not been vaccinated – the first dose of the triple viral vaccine is applied to the year of the life e and repeated at admission to school – were in contact with a person who was traveling

. Epidemiology (SAVE) stated that cases imported or related to imports registered in the country during the last 18 years "came mainly from English, Italian Japanese and Argentine tourists who had traveled to Southeast Asia".

In the case of those babies who were not vaccinated, "if they had contact with someone who had measles, they had plenty of opportunities to acquire it. Today, we are not able to ensure that it is necessarily a failure of the health system or talk about the rise of anti-vaccine movements. This is an expected situation in the context of the disease circulating in other parts of the world. In principle, it is a known situation.

Globally, measles remains one of the leading causes of death in young children. It is estimated that in 2016, 89,780 people died from this cause, most of them under five years old.

Globally, measles remains one of the leading causes of death in children

caused by a paramyxovirus family virus and is usually transmitted by direct contact and by the disease. ;air. The virus infects the airways and spreads to the rest of the body.

"In Argentina, we have no endemic cases since 2000 – marked with SAVE-." It is determined that they traveled abroad, cases related to The import will be taken into account.This is a very likely situation in an international context with so many cases, hospitalizations and deaths.In Brazil, nearly 700 cases and four deaths were recorded "

FIRST CASE" AUTOCTONO "IN THE YEARS

Although several Argentines were infected with measles after a trip abroad, the case of a baby residing in the city from Buenos Aires and without a travel history, it has become the first "indigenous" diagnosis in Argentina since 2000.

"We need to make this episode relevant because it is about an aboriginal case confirmed and several years have not pbaded, which is why the teams of epidemiology re Align the corresponding studies, "explains at the time the National Director of Epidemiology, Patricia Angeleri, questioned about the risk of the situation

. later after an investigation, the baby's contagion would have occurred through a 21-year-old man who was traveling to Thailand and Indonesia and introduced omas when he returned to the countryside. He and the girl agreed in a waiting room in an interval of 20 minutes, so the authorities argue that it was zero case.

"We can most probably say that it would be the source of infection that caused the disease to the baby, which is a case with residence in the city, but related to the importation," Julián said. Antman, Chief of Operational Management of Epidemiology, Ministry of Health, Buenos Aires