In New York they recommend making sure you are vaccinated before traveling to Israel, the corona continues to kill in Israel as well, and there is also diphtheria and scabies
The health authorities of the state of New York in the United States issued a warning late last week to residents who intend to visit Israel, to make sure they are vaccinated against polio. The recommendation is valid for all residents of New York, even those who are not traveling, because the same strain of the virus also circulates in New York.
The warning was issued after the number of children infected with the virus reached five in Israel, among those who came in contact with the girl who was infected in the north of the country. None of them currently have symptoms. According to the Ministry of Health, there are at least 175,000 children in Israel who have not been vaccinated against polio, and each of them is at risk of developing paralysis if infected with the disease. Most unvaccinated children who contract polio will not develop symptoms, and of those who develop symptoms, the majority will recover fully and less than a percent will develop irreversible paralysis. However, the risk is there. In addition, some of those who recover will develop “post-polio” syndrome after decades, which can cause them to become paralyzed. The inactivated polio virus (IPV) vaccine is currently given as part of the infant vaccination routine and protects against the disease and its complications. Those whose children have not been vaccinated, it is recommended that they go with them to a drop of milk or a health fund to complete the vaccinations.
Vaccines protect against polio and many other diseases, and you should be careful about all of them. A girl receives a vaccine Photo: DR P. MARAZZI / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Corona vaccines protect against serious illness
The number of deaths from Corona in Israel rose towards the end of the week to 12,331 – an increase of 28 from last week. The number of patients in serious condition, which has been on the rise again since mid-February, hovers around 100. Most of the patients in serious condition are over 60 years old, most of them have been vaccinated but the vaccine is no longer valid. The percentage of unvaccinated among these patients is much higher than their share in the general population. Seven patients in serious condition are under 60 years old, of which five are unvaccinated, one with an invalid vaccine and only Ed with a valid vaccine.
From a global perspective, in recent days Russia and South Korea lead the reported morbidity of Corona, with more than 10,000 patients a day, and this is at a time when many of the patients are not tested at all. In Japan too, there are over 9,000 reported patients a day, at the end of a large wave of morbidity that occurred about two months ago and claimed the lives of thousands in Japan. In the last few days it became known that with them two lions who were probably infected by their handlers also died from Corona.
Diphtheria on both sides of the ocean
In Nigeria, the great diphtheria outbreak continues, with nearly 800 confirmed cases and at least 61 deaths from the disease in Kano, in the north of the country. The number of deaths there is particularly high, more than 12 percent of patients, due to a combination of low immune coverage and a lack of antibodies against the toxin of the diphtheria bacterium. The city authorities are trying to quickly vaccinate as many children as possible in an attempt to stop the disease.
Three diphtheria patients were also diagnosed in Venezuela. The country has been battling the disease since 2016, when it reappeared there after decades of silence from it. At the height of the outbreak there were hundreds of cases, but after vaccination and prevention operations the numbers dropped sharply.
Dutch itches
In the Netherlands, we are fighting the scabies disease, or by its Hebrew name “scabies”, a skin disease caused by tiny mites, which, as the name suggests, causes severe itching. The rate of patients in the Netherlands climbed to 44 per 100,000 people, about 2.5 times the numbers last year. The cause of the increase is apparently an outbreak in a kindergarten in the city of Obrisal, and its spread from children to adults. In the Netherlands, there is no obligation to report individual cases of scabies disease, so it is possible that the real numbers are much higher than reported.