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SAO PAULO – A measles epidemic is developing in Brazil after the importation of cases from neighboring Venezuela where health services have collapsed.
460 cases of the disease were confirmed in two Brazilian border states, said Monday the Ministry of Health. It is also feared that the epidemic has reached an isolated tribe that lives in the Amazon and has little resistance to these diseases.
Cases in Brazil occur after the World Health Organization has declared that the Americas would be measles-free in 2016. occur even after a country has been declared free because cases may be imported. This is exactly what happened in Brazil, where the disease crossed the border with people fleeing the economic and political collapse in neighboring Venezuela.
Measles spreads in the air and is very contagious. Although there is no specific treatment for the disease, the vaccine is very effective. The symptoms of measles include fever, runny nose, cough, sore throat and a rash that extends over the body
Last year, measles began to spread to Venezuela, where more than 2,000 cases were identified. was once rich, and the health system there was a model for the region. But mismanagement and falling oil prices have resulted in a widespread shortage of everything from food to medicine. Doctors fled and health services collapsed
The general difficulties in Venezuela sent more than 1 million people fleeing to neighboring countries, sometimes bringing the disease with them.
To fight the epidemic, the Brazilian authorities to foreigners who register with the federal police and increased efforts to ensure that Brazilians are vaccinated. Brazilians should be systematically vaccinated against measles, but authorities have recently organized special campaigns in Roraima and the Amazon to vaccinate those who have escaped the system.
Beyond the usual concerns of containing the highly contagious disease, Survival International said the outbreak could devastate the isolated tribe of the Yanomami, who lives on both sides of the border between Brazil and Venezuela, at the heart from the Amazon. So far, 23 Yanomami with measles symptoms have sought medical treatment in Brazil, said the indigenous rights organization, and one of these cases has been confirmed. Many others could be sick in Venezuela, where Survival International said that it is harder to get information.
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