In a follow-up on the imported measles situation in Brazil, the Ministry of Health reported this week that the 910 cases of measles have been confirmed in Amazonas, 5,630 remain under investigation.
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In addition, the state of Roraima has confirmed 296 cases of the disease and 101 are still under investigation. All the cases are imported from Venezuela.
The genotype of the virus (D8) that is circulating in the country is the same that circulates in Venezuela, a country that has been facing an outbreak of the disease since 2017. Some isolated and import-related cases were identified in the states of São Paulo (1), Rio de Janeiro (14); Rio Grande do Sul (13); Rondônia (1) and Pará (2).
To date, in Brazil, 6 deaths have been confirmed for measles, 4 deaths in the state of Roraima (3 in foreigners and 1 in Brazilian) and 2 deaths in the state of Amazonas (Brazil).
The National Campaign on Poliomyelitis and Measles Vaccination will last until August 31 and intends to vaccinate 11.2 million children. The D day of national mobilization will be Saturday, August 18, when the more than 36 thousand stations will be open in the country. The goal is to vaccinate at least 95% of children to reduce the possibility of polio return and reemergence of measles, diseases already eliminated in Brazil. All children between the ages of 1 year and under 5 years should be taken to the vaccination posts, regardless of the previous vaccination situation.
Image DOD
In related news, the Pentagon is sending a U.S. Navy hospital ship to Colombia to help treat some of the hundreds of thousands of people who have poured over the border fleeing violence in Venezuela, according to a Stars and Stripes report.
“We’re not sending soldiers, we’re sending doctors,” Mattis said. “It is absolutely a humanitarian mission,” he told reporters returning with him to Washington after a six-day tour of South America.
The Comfort has 12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT scan and two oxygen-producing plants.
Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council, told VOA the situation in Venezuela has led to a migration crisis of global proportions “that is on track to potentially parallel or surpass the numbers that (have been) coming out of the Middle East.”
As of June, an estimated 2.3 million people had fled Venezuela, mainly to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, according to the United Nations. U.N.
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