2023-05-22 06:53:00
After outbreaks in recent months of the measles andReturnanother disease against which there is an old and effective vaccine has re-emerged in South Africa – diphtheria. A child and an adult fell ill with diphtheria in two provinces in South Africa. The Ministry of Health there emphasizes to medical personnel to pay attention to the signs of the disease, and calls on anyone who exhibits the symptoms of the disease to go for a medical examination.
As you may remember, in Nigeria in West Africa there is a major diphtheria epidemic that has been going on for several months, and which has already claimed over 70 lives. Recently trained by the Red Cross More than 200 volunteers help prevent the disease. In four days of training, the volunteers learned how to guide communities in preventive behavior that will limit the spread of the disease and help in its eradication. Only 36 percent of children between the ages of one and two in Nigeria Complete the recommended vaccination schedulewhen 18 of the toddlers at this age were not vaccinated at all.
Article Originally published on the Davidson Institute for Science Education website
Earlier this month, a death from diphtheria was reported in Vietnam, first case in years. The authorities immediately launched an epidemiological investigation to reach all the patient’s contacts and check that they were not infected, after neighboring Laos had a single case in December 2022 resulted in an outbreak with 60 patients, most of them are children. 12 of them died from the disease. The patients in Laos were not vaccinated, and their parents, who were completely unaware of the disease, initially assumed that their children had contracted the flu and brought them to medical treatment too late. Even then, the diagnosis was not always correct.
The vaccine against diphtheria is very effective, and is given as part of routine vaccinations to all infants in Israel and children in schools who are vaccinated according to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health.
Polio is still with us
In Afghanistan they were found Two are infected with type 1 polio, the only original species that survived in the world, after 22 of them were discovered in the country last year. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries in the world where the original polio still exists, because of some stubborn tribes that resist vaccinations and Serbs participated in polio vaccination campaigns.
However, even when the only remaining wild strain of polio is finally eradicated, the fight against the disease will continue. Eradication efforts are carried out by vaccination with an attenuated virus, but when the immune coverage is not complete, the attenuated virus May mutate and become violent again. Indeed, there are countries in the world with outbreaks of such a mutant virus, and let’s recall that even in Israel there is currently circulating in the population polio virus type 2 from a compound source, the only protection against which in Israel is the vaccine with a killed virus, which is given by injection and not by mouth drops. This injection also includes the diphtheria vaccine, and those who do not vaccinate their children expose them to the risk of contracting two very unpleasant and even dangerous diseases.
Corona count
In terms of Corona, the number of patients hospitalized in Israel due to Corona continues to decrease. The number of deaths from the disease continues to rise, of course, and has reached 12,521, a rate of about ten deaths from corona every week in recent weeks.
For more articles on the Davidson Institute for Science Education website
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