As of: March 16, 2024, 6:50 a.m
By: Lennart Schwenck
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Measles alarm in Austria.
The number of cases is skyrocketing.
What is behind this dramatic increase?
Munich – Austrian media reports on increasing numbers of measles infections.
According to the news portal
oe24.at,
the laboratory-confirmed numbers have increased by almost 50 cases within a week, from 219 to 267 infected people.
An alarming development in neighboring Austria, because measles was actually considered eliminated in Austria with an infection rate of 0.1 measles cases per million inhabitants in 2022.
Measles is considered highly dangerous because it can cause complications such as middle ear infections and severe pneumonia.
Small children or infants and people with weak immune systems are particularly at risk, but so are adults.
The infections can have serious consequences in around ten percent, including permanent damage and, in the worst case, can even be fatal.
Increasing numbers of measles infections: This is the cause
The first symptoms are usually cough, runny nose and fever, and after a few days the reddish rash typical of measles appears.
Experts see the end of the global corona pandemic and the associated containment measures as the main reason for the increasing number of infections.
The mask requirement and “restricting social contacts meant that measles didn’t really have a good chance of being transmitted,” explains Dorothea Matysiak-Klose, head of the office of the National Measles/Rubella Verification Commission at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, in a recent interview with
Deutschlandfunk.
According to the WHO, measles cases have increased by 79 percent compared to 2022 - vaccination is expressly recommended © Getty Images
According to the WHO, measles cases have increased by 79 percent compared to 2022.
Because in 2023 over 300,000 cases were reported to the WHO worldwide.
In 2022 there were 171,000 cases worldwide.
Measles is particularly widespread in eastern Mediterranean countries such as Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen.
In areas close to Europe, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan are particularly affected.
For comparison: Germany reported 79 confirmed cases of measles nationwide in 2023.
The year before there were only 15. And this year, according to the RKI, 89 cases have already been reported.
Most cases come from North Rhine-Westphalia with 29 laboratory-confirmed cases, followed by Berlin with 16 and Saxony with 14 cases.
There were recently eight infections in Bavaria.
Measles on the rise: The importance of vaccination
Experts emphasize the urgent need for vaccination, especially for children and babies aged nine months and over.
The double vaccination provides a high level of protection against the disease and helps prevent outbreaks.
Nevertheless, according to the Robert Koch Institute,
there are
worrying gaps in vaccination coverage, especially for children under one year of age.
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Adults should also have sufficient vaccination protection.
There was a measles outbreak in the Hildesheim district in 2019 with 43 cases (15 of which involved previous vaccination).
During this period, a 33-year-old woman died after contracting the measles virus from her children.
The autopsy revealed giant cell pneumonia, a complication that typically occurs in immunocompromised individuals.
Genotyping of the measles virus revealed that the wild-type virus D8-4683 was associated with the Hildesheim outbreak.
Prior vaccination or rapid post-exposure prophylaxis would likely have saved her life.
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