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The Ministry of Health is concerned about the unusual increase in measles cases that have occurred in the country and in the rest of the continent, since all scenarios have been given to facilitate its spread .
This was declared today La Tercera which explains that there are three reasons why a disease such as measles, which has been eliminated since 2016, may reappear: Weak vaccination plans, changes in the behavior of individuals and the mobility of people between different countries and continents.
These three causes are those given so that since January of this year, when two cases were presented, on the mainland increased this number to 1,945 until last June. That's 40% of the almost 5,000 cases that were presented during the 2010-2015 period, according to the Panamanian / Rubella Weekly Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Another factor that has facilitated the spread of measles has been migration and the large number of trips to places where the disease is still present.
That is why the Minsal acknowledged being in front of an "Unusual situation for the Americas". For this reason, health services across the country have been alerted, to initiate an active case search.
"The case of Peru and Argentina is expected in the context of the current risk of measles in the Americas.Today, no case has been confirmed in Chile, while now active surveillance.In 2015, our country introduced an imported case, which managed to control the epidemic in two months, " noted.
Regarding vaccination programs, the Minsal says that they are very successful, and in the specific case Measles is vaccinated against the infant population at the age of 1 year and in the 1st year.
"The coverage of the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) reached in 2017 at the age of 93.5% and in first base of 90%, according to information from the National Immunization Program. The latest seroprevalence studies in the Chilean population (15 and 40 years) reach 89.5% for measles, which is a very good indicator of protection against the disease " they explained.
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