On the way to extinction. Measles, an extremely contagious viral disease, has suffered a sharp decline in France in recent years. The number of cases fell from 2,636 in 2019 to just 240 in 2020, then 16 in 2021 and 15 in 2022, according to figures published by Public health France.
A decrease favored by a mandatory vaccination on January 1, 2018. The vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, 100% reimbursed for children on presentation of the Vitale card, must be subject to two injections: one at 12 months, the other between 16 and 18 months.
An almost eradicated disease
If the disease seems almost completely eradicated today in France, it is not a question of relaxing efforts against this virus, whose circulation was also greatly slowed down by containment measures during the Covid-19 crisis.
“We should not stop vaccination against measles, especially since today we have good figures. It would be a counter-message,” estimates Christophe Batard, a pediatrician in Vincennes and a member of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics, on the BFMTV microphone.
“The idea is to continue with this vaccination, we don’t stop a winning team,” continues the practitioner.
The first sign of measles infection is usually a high fever, which appears 10-12 days after exposure to the virus and lasts 4-7 days. This fever may be accompanied by coughing, red, watery eyes and a runny nose, as well as small whitish dots on the inside of the cheeks. These points can then reach the rest of the face and upper neck, then the hands and feet.
severe forms
Measles can also cause complications. “It is a disease that can give serious forms, especially in children, with encephalitis, equivalent to meningitis, and then especially respiratory damage with pneumonia, as Covid can do,” warns Benjamín Davido, an infectologist at the Raymond-Hospital de Poincaré in Garches, in the Hauts-de-Seine.
Therefore, some cases can lead to hospitalization, or even resuscitation, with organ failure. Complications most often occur before the age of 5 or in adults older than 30 years.
Measles continues to wreak havoc around the world
Although France has almost eradicated the disease, measles “continues to be a common disease in many developing countries,” he recalls. World Health Organization (WHO). Present in particular in Africa and Asia, it still killed more than 200,000 people in 2019.
Introduced in 1963, vaccination nevertheless prevented 20.4 million child deaths between 2000 and 2016, again according to the WHO. Hence the importance of being well vaccinated from an early age.
Source: BFM TV
