Why some people in the East European community are reluctant to vaccinate | New

HAPPY VALLEY, OR (KPTV) – The measles epidemic in Clark County has now reached 64 confirmed cases, and almost all of these patients are people who are not vaccinated.

Because of the privacy laws of the medical data, we know their age, but nothing else about their social or cultural background, or why they chose not to receive the vaccine. But we know that at least two of the early exposure sites were linked to churches with links to Eastern Europe.

On Friday, FOX 12's was entertained with Dr. Tetyana Odarich, who runs Sunrise Medical Medical's medical office in Happy Valley.

She lives in Vancouver, right in the middle of the outbreak, and has direct links to some of the affected patients.

"There is a very significant resistance to vaccination among people in Eastern Europe," she said. "I think the vaccination rate is about 50% against 73% in the population, which is unfortunately too low, because for us to be able to fight against measles, we have to have a vaccination rate of 40%. at least 95%. "

She says the reasons for this are many.

On the one hand, people who grew up in a communist country might have a different sense of trust in government or public health officials and the expression "do something for the common good" has may have been misused in their country of origin. But this word may not have much meaning.

In addition, she says that the former Soviet Union poorly controlled the quality of vaccines, so people had more side effects once they had received it.

"Another reason is that a lot of information received by the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian community comes from Russian-speaking and Ukrainian sources. And the anti-vax, anti-vaccination movement is very popular, "she said.

Much of this information is shared on social media or websites, where the authenticity of the information can not be verified.

"For someone who does not do science, it's very difficult to say whether a website is legitimate or not, whether it's real news or real news," she said. "So people just hear and they are scared."

Dr. Odarich is trying to teach his patients not to take every article or video that they see at first.

"Who is the person who wrote this report? Can you call this person, can you email this person? If there are no coordinates, it is probably not true, "she added.

In her office, a vaccination manual which she distributes free of charge to patients; it was written by the Washington State Department of Health and was translated into English and Russian.

She hopes that a version in Ukrainian will be available soon.

"What I prefer here is how to validate the validity of the information on websites," she said, pointing to the book.

She says half of her patients speak Russian or Ukrainian and many are from Vancouver.

When she asks them if they want to talk about measles or vaccines, she finds that new patients usually do not do it.

"I deeply respect people's decision to talk about it or not talk about it," she said. "Usually, people respect my respect. Usually, after a few visits when they know who I am and that I will not send them away from my office because they are not vaccinated, they could say, you know what, that this measles outbreak, is that? How are you going to talk about that? "

It is thanks to this type of relationship that families feel they are in a safe space to answer their questions and concerns that Dr. Odarich thinks people will open up.

Now, she says that vaccination rates in her clinic are booming.

"Many families are getting vaccinated, the vaccination rate has increased several times," she said about her office. "Great interest for families of sick people, families who are friends of these people or in churches with these people."

There are also a large number of exhibition sites in our area that have nothing to do with the East European community.

Cases have been reported in 15 schools – and Clark County public health officials told FOX 12 that the outbreak was not related to any particular group.

They say that there are large pockets of unvaccinated people throughout the community.

"I just want to emphasize that we are all people," added Dr. Odarich. "If we want to be together and provide a safe environment where we can discuss real issues, I think we have a much better chance of success."

For more information on the measles outbreak in Clark County, visit: https://www.clark.wa.gov/public-health/measles-investigation.

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