Hildesheim with its approximately 100,000 inhabitants was for many a long time a place you knew with luck, where he is located. Since a few weeks, but the low Saxon small town is representative of a Problem that doesn’t get Germany in the grip of the measles.
After an outbreak in March, 80 students were not allowed to enter a school because of vaccination against potentially life-threatening infectious disease were absent. High-school graduates passed their written exams. Not least for this reason, a debate on vaccination was kindled in Germany, in addition to the Minister of health, Jens Spahn (CDU) family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD) for mandatory spraying.
The discussion gives the impression that Germany is suffering this year, especially among the measles. In fact, there have been 2019, in several länder, as yet, no Ill. In others the cases are piling up. In the comparison of 2019 is so far, although above average, but not exceptional year. The Overview:
In these provinces there were up to mid-March, the majority of measles cases
Until the middle of March have been infected in Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute, a total of 236 people with the measles. Although the cases moved to Hildesheim, a lot of attention, is not of lower Saxony at the head of the most affected provinces:
- By far the majority of cases, there was instead, in North Rhine-Westphalia. There, Doctors were sick until the middle of March, 92 Measles. Even if you take into account that NRW has the most inhabitants, became infected relatively more people than in all other provinces.
- On the next places follow Baden-Württemberg (36 measles cases up to mid-March), lower Saxony (31 measles cases until the middle of March) and Bayern (30 measles cases until the middle of March).
The midfield of the list ranges from the state of Hesse (16 cases) to Schleswig-Holstein (one case). In five of the 16 Federal States, Doctors reported that continued until the middle of March, still no disease: Brandenburg, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saarland and Saxony-Anhalt.
Measles cases in 2019 (up to 17. March)
This does not mean that these States are immune to an outbreak. Measles is among the most contagious pathogens. An Infected comes with a human contact that is not protected by vaccination or previous illness, becomes ill with a probability of 95 percent.
How quickly and selectively be measles-outbreaks can develop, shows the example of Berlin. There are documented Doctors of 2019 so far, only seven measles cases. In 2015, the number in the middle of March was already at 699 – the largest Germany-wide outbreak of the last ten years.
The current measles Situation in the Ten-year comparison
Until mid-March, significantly more people were infected this year as of 2018. At that time there was a little more than 80 cases, today, there are more than 230. In the Ten-year comparison of 2019 is also above-average, but, unlike the current discussion suggests no extremes of measles of the year.
By far the majority of cases occurred in 2015, then, the RKI documented in the first eleven weeks of the year, almost 1100 cases. In addition to Berlin, the measles began to increase at the time diseases, also in Bavaria (72 cases), Saxony (70 cases) and Brandenburg (67 cases).
The outbreak in Berlin shows what can happen if the hits highly contagious Virus to many of the Unvaccinated. Cities are most often involved in outbreaks, since that is where the people live closer together. In addition, many passengers, which increases the risk of having a meeting, someone brings the measles from one Region to another.
It can meet all the Federal States – almost
A look at the RKI Figures shows the complete past ten years, that almost no major state is immune to the threat of a measles outbreak, with one exception.
Nowhere else in Germany’s Western Pomerania, the risk of being infected with the measles, one of the lowest in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Since 2009, only 25 people are in the country, in spite of its 1.6 million inhabitants of measles ill – 16 of the cases were bundled together in 2015, and occurred sporadically, and at the same time with the outbreak in Berlin. In the years 2009 and 2012, the infected in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is not a person.
In addition to the low population density and the high vaccination rates for measles could contribute-freedom. 2016 had received in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to the RKI, 95.8 per cent of the children in the Training both necessary measles vaccinations-as many as nowhere else.
Measles should be in Germany in 2015 exterminated
In fact, Germany had, in consultation with the world health organization (WHO) goal of measles by 2015, to eradicate. At least 95 percent of the people would have to be twice against the pathogen inoculated. In the case of the children who were enrolled in school in 2016 in Germany, had received 97.1 percent of the first vaccination. The second syringe could, however, have only 92.9 percent.
Some parents refuse, especially measles vaccinations, also has to do with misinformation, circulating still on the Internet. In 1998, researchers claimed team led by Andrew Wakefield, vaccination against measles, Mumps and rubella could cause autism. Due to a “dishonest” representation of the results the publication has been withdrawn. Wakefield had to give up his registration as a doctor.
In the meantime, numerous studies have made a connection between the vaccination and autism clear (most recently here). Nevertheless, the damage of the false information continues to today.
