By NewsDesk @infectiousdiseasenews
Vietnam health officials recently reported (computer translated) on a 17-month-old girl from Ha Nam presenting to the hospital with high fever and a body rash. The family told doctors that the rash started at the face then spread to the back, chest, hands–measles.
Upon further examination and discussion it was determined that the parents didn’t get the child vaccinated.
Why?
They read on on social networks about the “adverse” reactions caused by vaccine and chose not to vaccinate.
And this is not an isolated incident in Vietnam. The Department of Infectious Diseases of the National Hospital of Pediatrics show that most cases of children diagnosed with measles treated in the department are not vaccinated, including cases of disease caused by certain parents who did not get their children vaccinated. “We have a lot of cases of children hospitalized due to serious complications after being infected by measles and not being vaccinated.”
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Dr. Nguyen Van Lam, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases, National Hospital of Pediatrics evaluated, recently, there appeared many spontaneous information to encourage parents not to vaccinate their children. And many parents did not allow their children to vaccinate, resulting in many babies being protected from dangerous infections, including measles.
Vietnam has prescribed the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) for compulsory vaccinations.
If many children are not fully vaccinated, the community is not protected, the disease will return, outbreaks. “Before the anti-vaccine views, every family, mothers we need to be careful when receiving because it is very likely that the lives of children depend on the decisions of parents,” Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Mr. Tran Dac Phu said.
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In Vietnam, the implementation of EPI has brought about remarkable results, fundamentally changing the structure of child diseases, namely: polio eradication in 2000, achieving the goal of neonatal tetanus elimination in 2005; and the incidence of diseases such as diphtheria and pertussis has reduced dozens to hundreds of times.
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