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MANILA: A growing epidemic of measles in the Philippines killed at least 25 people last month, officials said Thursday, citing a degree of mistrust fueled by fear of a dengue vaccine.
Most of the deaths are children and the toll is expected to increase as new confirmed cases of highly contagious disease, which has made a worldwide resurgence in recent years.
Figures from national health authorities in the Philippines show that cases have gone from 791 in 2017 to 5,120 last year. There were 1,813 confirmed cases in January alone.
The most recent figures available show that measles killed 30 people in the first eight months of last year and five in 2017.
The authorities said that vaccination rates in the Philippines have been declining for years, but have also drawn attention to the recent controversy over the safety of the Dengue Dengue vaccine.
"Immunization coverage against measles has been declining for five years," said Eric Domingo, Under Secretary of Health, at a news conference.
"In recent years, the issue of the vaccine against Dengvaxia has helped," he added, as the government urged parents to vaccinate their children.
Fear began in late 2017, shortly after the Philippines administered Dengvaxia to some 837,000 students as part of a public vaccination campaign.
The vaccine maker, Sanofi, panicked that a new badysis showed that dengvaxia can lead to more severe symptoms for people who have never been infected with dengue fever.
Sanofi said unequivocally that his product was safe, but Manila ended the campaign and left hundreds of thousands of terrified parents wondering if their children were in danger.
In November 2018, the World Health Organization warned that measles cases had increased overall by more than 30% in 2017 compared to the previous year, partly because of unvaccinated children.
The San Lazaro Hospital in the Philippine capital has reported more than 50 deaths from measles and more than 1,500 patients in January alone, which requires confirmation from the health department.
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