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The authorities note an alarming drop in immunization coverage against this viral disease, but also against measles
Devaneide Rodrigues Gonçalves had 1 year and 5 months when the doctors made the diagnosis: poliomyelitis. We are in 1989 in the state of Paraiba, Brazil. Devaneide Rodrigues Gonçalves will be the last case recorded in the country of "spinal paralysis infantile", another name for polio, a viral disease with terrible consequences that disabled millions of children. The man who is now a young man in his thirties has since continued to hammer the same message: "Vaccinate your children!
Effective, the polio vaccine, mandatory, has eradicated the disease in Brazil. But in recent months, the health authorities are panicking: the vaccination coverage is shrinking dangerously. On July 10, the Ministry of Health launched the alert: in 312 cities, less than half of children under 5 are vaccinated against polio. In some municipalities, such as Ribeira do Pombal in Bahia State or Santo Antonio do Aracangua in Sao Paulo State, coverage does not exceed 2%. "We never saw that. It's the gateway to the re-emergence of the disease. " worries Isabella Ballalai, president of the Brazilian Society of Immunization.
"Negligence"
Polio is not the only childhood disease to haunt health organizations. For several weeks, the cases of measles, scourge supposed to have disappeared since 2016, multiply in the country. The disease appeared in the north, in the provinces of Roraima or Amazonia, due in particular to the immigration of a Venezuelan population reduced to misery. There, the Ministry of Health confirmed more than 450 cases of measles, which made two deaths including a 7-month-old infant. The disease now extends to the south. Ribeirao Preto, a city in the state of Sao Paulo, confirmed a case in April, a first for more than ten years, while two others were recorded in Rio de Janeiro.
The beginning of the epidemic …
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