MEASLES – ARGENTINA (02): (BUENOS AIRES) INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER,
SECONDARY CASES
A ProMED-mail post
http://www.promedmail.org
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
http://www.isid.org
Date: Mon 24 Feb 2025
Source: Primera Fuente, Argentina [in Spanish, machine trans.,
abridged, edited]
https://www.primerafuente.com.ar/noticias/121563/alerta-epidemiologica-detectaron-4-casos-sarampion-buenos-aires
“The Ministry of Health of the City of Buenos Aires has confirmed 4
cases of measles in the city. The detection of these cases has
activated a series of health measures with the aim of containing the
spread of the virus and reinforcing vaccination in the community,” the
government of Jorge Macri announced this Sunday [23 Feb 2025]. But
until early Monday [24 Feb 2025], there was still no information about
the outbreak on the district’s social networks.
The first confirmed cases were 2 girls with a recent travel history to
Russia and without vaccination. The third, reported 10 days ago,
corresponded to a teacher who had been with that family. The fourth,
announced in the last few hours, is a young neighbor of the girls. As
sources from the Buenos Aires government confirmed to the newspaper La
Nación, there are other cases under study that were also in contact
with the first, in Commune 14, and they all correspond to the same
cluster. The Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI) also
issued an epidemiological alert after the confirmation of the fourth
case.
According to the data available through December 2024, the coverage
rate of the first dose of the measles vaccine at the national level
reached 81.6% of the population. But for the 5-year reinforcement,
that proportion fell to 54.8%. “This year [2024] there was a 10%
increase in vaccine coverage. Today we can say that more than half of
the children in Argentina do not have a complete vaccination card, so
we will see the re-emergence of diseases such as polio, measles,
chickenpox, among other contagious diseases that are controlled
today,” Doctor Oscar Atienza, MPH, told this newspaper in September
[2024].
“Any drop in coverage is worrying, but there are some diseases where
the transmission rate is very high, such as measles, where a decrease
in coverage can facilitate a very important outbreak,” warned Pablo
Bonvehí, head of infectious diseases at Cemic and member of the PAHO
Technical Advisory Group on Immunizations. There were recent alarms in
that regard. In 2019, at the end of the Macrista government, the worst
measles outbreak in the last 2 decades was recorded.
Bonvehí pointed out at that time the need for more dissemination
campaigns by the State and the implementation of devices in
educational settings: “Communication is essential to reverse this
situation and be able to improve coverage.” He proposed “considering
vaccination in schools, which is carried out in many countries like
Chile and allows good coverage to be maintained.” He also pointed to
the role of health professionals in clinics.
The drop in vaccination rates and its impact — in a framework of
growing anti-vaccine discourses — are not only evident in Argentina.
In the United States, the Texas Department of State Health Services
confirmed at least 90 cases, 77 of them in children under 17 years of
age. The danger has been growing in recent years: measles cases in
Europe rose from 900 in 2022 to more than 42 000 in 2023.