Emirates News Agency – Local Press: Vaccination Immunizes UAE Against Global Upward Trend in Measles Cases

ABU DHABI, April 18, 2019 (WAM) – In the century before its eradication in 1980, the result of a global vaccination campaign, smallpox killed 300 million people, an Emirati newspaper reported.

"Experts now hope that measles will meet the same fate, knowing that the disease can be prevented almost entirely by vaccines," said The National in an editorial released Thursday.

And yet, preliminary data released Monday by the World Health Organization give a different picture. Measles cases actually increased by 300% in the first quarter of 2019, an increase for the second year in a row. A highly contagious disease that spreads in the air and can be deadly, especially in infants, its proliferation, at a time when vaccines are widely available, raises considerable concern.

"Europe alone has six times more cases of measles than the Eastern Mediterranean, a region grouping some of the poorest countries in Asia – such as Afghanistan and Pakistan – as well as Iraq, Syria and Yemen torn apart by the war.This phenomenon can propaganda anti-vaccine, fabricated and disseminated by conspiracy theorists to discourage parents from inoculating their children.

"In simple terms, it increases the risk of preventable infection." Anti-vaxxers "claim that vaccines cause autism in children, allegation based on fictitious research that has been repeatedly denied by health professionals, financial means for large-scale vaccination, it is all the more disconcerting that parents in affluent countries simply refuse to be vaccinated and thus put others in danger.

"However, the UAE seems to be largely immune to this dangerous trend.In 2015, the country introduced a mandatory measles immunization program for children aged 1 to 18. And the UAE recorded only nine cases measles in the first three months of 2019, up from 76 in the same period last year.

This policy has made the nation a shining example of measles prevention in the region and beyond. By combining a clever health policy with public awareness campaigns, the UAE has become a safer and healthier place, even as the tide turns in other parts of the world, "the Abu Dhabi-based daily concluded.