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IRELAND HAS ONE of the lowest rates in Europe of immunisation against measles, according to a new report from the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC).
Ireland was one of nine EU countries which reported measles cases last year. 19 EEA countries have eliminated endemic measles.
The report said that measles rates in Europe have dropped below pre-pandemic levels, which may have been a result of lockdowns, but it is possible that measles infections were underreported during the pandemic as healthcare resources were focused on Covid-19.
Most measles patients were children under the age of five, but the report said that 39% of measles cases between 2018 and 2021 were in adults over 20. Of those adults, 73% were unvaccinated against measles.
In 2022, adults aged above 20 years accounted for 26% of the reported cases, and 72% were unvaccinated.
The report said that importation of measles cases between countries was reported last year, in greater numbers than previous years. It said: “When the overall vaccination coverage is low, the virus finds its way towards pockets of susceptible populations. Thus, transmission may occur and could lead
to extensive outbreaks.”
Last month, the HSE urged parents in Ireland to check their children were vaccinated against measles before travelling over the Easter break.
“Situations in which importations have been contained, even small outbreaks can create a severe burden on the health system in countries that have eliminated measles.”
Just four European countries – Hungary, Norway, Portugal and Slovakia – reported measles immunisation rates of at least 95% in 2021, compared to seven countries in 2019.
In 2021, 90% of people in Ireland had one dose of a measles vaccine, a decrease of 2% from 2018. The number of people with two doses was not available.
The report said that the pandemic may have had an effect on vaccination rates.
It continued: “Overall, a majority of EU/EEA countries have not reached or sustained high vaccination coverage of ≥95% with two doses of measles-containing vaccine[s]. Given the sub-optimal vaccination coverage in a number of countries, it is likely that in the future increases in the number of reported cases across the EU/EEA will be observed again.
“Continuous enhanced epidemiological surveillance and investigation of measles outbreaks are the cornerstones for measles to be controlled and eliminated. In order to strive for the highest coverage, it is critical to include hard-to-reach populations (refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers and Roma populations) in immunisation programmes (including catch-up campaigns).
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How is that possible sure we irish get the MMR jab as babies…
Given the increase of non irish by one million in this country I would postulate its amongst the non irish and more than likely those coming from outside the eu…
It’s the same with the TB day when certain radio stations and doctors were medical fear mongering that we have to be vigilant against tb….the reintroduction of TB is brought in from migrants from country’s with high rates of TB such as India that’s riddled with TB…how you going to be vigilant against screen migrants then if the have TB reject their entry…
So no ireland doesn’t have one of the highest rates of lack if vaccination…its immigrant population of non irish do…big difference
@William slevin: The second MMR dose is at 4-5 years of age and this is usually given at school (HSE’s school immunisation team) and in some areas, it is given by the child’s GP. The drop in vaccination rates is likely linked to disruption to schooling during the pandemic and children staying at home after catching Covid. The anti-vaccine movement in Europe has been reported on since at least 2018 (fuelled by social media and anti-establishment populists e.g. Five Star Movement (M5S), Kukiz’15, Stop NOP, Andrew Wakefield, Le Pen etc. and this has beenputting lives at risk for many years. When this hit the news as I first recall, Europe has had more measles cases in 2018 than any other year this century. Part of the difficulty is that many hurdles are outside the scope of an immunisation programme: political, religious and increasingly, part of identity for people.
@William slevin: Immigration, plays only a small part, c. 10%
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-children-vaccinated-against-measles
People from sub-Saharan Africa, where vaccination rates are lowest (c. 50%) and are <1% of the population (90% until the last few years, Poland had a higher vaccination rate than us at c. 97% for years until 2020 – 2021 when it dipped a bit, vaccination rates in Ukraine were also much higher than us (c. 99%) for many years, dipped for a few years in 2014 – 2016, but they are not the reason for the fall as they arrived after the figures (2021) we’re discussing.
A few north African countries dipped to c. 73% – 80% (in Libya and Algeria) but we have few immigrants from there. Syrians were >90% vaccinated till 2011, then it dropped to c. 60% for a few years, but there are c. 2,100 Syrian refugees in Ireland, c. 0.042% of our population, so are also not the reason either.
99% of Chinese are vaccinated.
The immigrant groups from Pakistan (currently 81% vaccinated), India (currently 89% vaccinated) and sub-Saharan African have lower overall vaccination rates than us, roughly 75%, but as said they are a relatively small a proportion of our population.
Thus, c. 80 – 90% of unvaccinated are Irish and just small change in vaccination rates among the Irish population can easily outstrip a few years of immigration from a country with a lower vaccination rates.
@David Jordan: William won’t like all that data.
Actual facts that don’t line up with his feelings are to be ignored. Or contested.
How many cases were imported ?
@Metaljester: I see you.
@Metaljester: We really don’t take care of those who need it, for sure. Little to no information systems for those arriving, some of whom could be coming from pretty fractured backgrounds (and with fragmented services i.e. complex emotional, physical and mental needs while public health services are already overstretched. There needs to be seamless info sharing between Government Depts and services so that all arrivals receive what they need in order to become part of our community and society. This needs cross-government responses (as per Covid in many ways).
Hugely in favour of vaccinations like the MMR, BCG etc.
I feel that pushing the vaccination of kids for covid, when it wasn’t necessary as they weren’t even remotely at risk and the negatives outweighed the positives, has hugely eroded the public trust in the medical system. I fear that parents will not vaccinate their kids against very serious diseases like tb, meningitis and measles as a result of this.
@James Groden: very valid point James – in my opinion Ireland has a bad habit of seldom challenging the officialdom and some of the narratives that very obviously cause some concern from the public / simply following the big pharma juggernaut of pushing vaccines to all ages when the risks actually outweighed the benefits is a great example / also back in 2016 people were pointing out implications / risk of poor border management for health but of course you get shouted down was asking why we can’t be more assertive in this area
This is from 2016 “it is increasingly recognised that one of the greatest risks posed to countries approaching measles elimination is importation of infectious cases. One case from arrived Hungary and led to outbreak in Ireland”
@david jordan your response which was practically the same as this one on here you made to me but on the poll comment section had been deleted…you wouldn’t know anything about that would you or why…
Maybe thejournal.ie trying to cover up your mistakes and contradictions?…at your behest?
Are you a thejournal.ie employee? Posing as a fact check fact answering commenter?
I did alway find something suspicious about you… : /
Lovely article riddled with uneducated xenophobic propaganda.
@Yvon Queguiner: not the article, just some comments pointing fingers with no data as usual or a Facebook education.
@david jordan: You love to play around with the stats don’t you and then have them contradict each other…
Do you see how these two posts contradict each other…like this part”Thus, c. 90% of unvaccinated are Irish and other nationalities with higher overall vaccination rates” also I’ll address that in this on you include the non irish in the 90% unvaccinated, which would mean that not 90% is irish as you’ve included the non irish in it…
If you believe 99% Chinese in China are vaccinated then you don’t know what your talking about…most of rural China has very little Western style health care some yes not much…they still practice ancient Chinese medicine and majority of them would not touch a vaccination…so no…China is no where near 99% vaccinated in anything and if they had a drive of vaccinations would only be in the last 20 years…China has a very high aging population and most of them would not be vaccinated that’s for sure def 60′s and over…
As for your examples of high vaccination rate of Poland and Ukraine you give them as examples really country’s that have had little to no immigration in the past 20 years are you for real…if Poland had the same jump in immigration and population size as we have had they would be have increased by 7.6 million from 38 million in 2003 but in fact has dropped to 37.7 million so no wonder theirs is so high…
Ireland has had an population increase of 20% mostly due to immigration…we’ve only seen spikes in these diseases since then and like the TB one…
Your all over the place…you keep trying to correlate the size of these immigrants population to the irish population to justify your claim which is just guess work…how about the actual numbers of those that got the measles broken down into nationalities and I bet their most non irish vaccinated or not…
Also you bring up the issue may stem from the pandemic kids not getting their second shot but those numbers were not given only the first shot numbers are known…
This is not the first time I’ve seen you try manipulate statistically information to justify your claims…how about get the actual data…ultimately anyone can manipulate statistically analysis to get the answers they want if they try hard enough…
@cairan foster:”@David Jordan: William won’t like all that data.
Actual facts that don’t line up with his feelings are to be ignored. Or contested.”
What’s that now lol
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