Measles is considered a disease eradicated in Spain since 2016 by a vaccine shield that reaches 95% of the population, so that last year only eleven cases were confirmed, all of them imported infections, amid the rebound of the disease in some regions of Europe and whose alert worries experts and organizations but is low for our country.
The warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) this week about the exponential increase in measles cases in the European region last year has put the disease on the table again, but not in Spain, one of the countries that has been avoiding the autochthonous cases caused by the virus, from the paramyxovirus family, for almost a decade.
In countries and areas where it no longer circulates due to the herd immunity provided by reaching 95% vaccination with two doses, 60 or 70% of measles cases are occurring in adults aged between 20 and 50 years, according to WHO data.
The alert launched this week by the WHO has its origins in 2020 after the outbreak of the pandemic, which caused a drop in vaccination coverage that has lasted until 2022 and which adds to the rise of anti-vaccine movements in recent years, which which has caused the resurgence of the virus in 40 of the 53 countries in the area.
In the records of the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (Renave) - with data from the Carlos III Health Institute - and even in a report prepared last year on the occasion of the Spanish presidency of the EU, emphasis is placed on the surveillance system Spanish, which continually evaluates the few cases that are confirmed, the last one detected this January in Catalonia and related to a trip to India.
Effective immunity against measles is only achieved if countries have vaccination schedules and programs capable of maintaining high coverage, more than 95% with 2 doses of vaccine, so rates lower than this figure will cause rebounds, as has occurred in several countries in the European region, which together have registered more than 30,000 cases between January and October 2023.
In an interview with EFE, María del Mar Tomás, doctor and microbiologist at the University Hospital of La Coruña and spokesperson for the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), explained that there has not been a complete eradication of measles because when the vaccination rate, the disease reappears and, although the risk is "low" for Spain, there are communities in which the percentage necessary for group immunity has been reduced.
For this reason, he has made "a wake-up call" to maintain these rates from childhood with the inoculation of minors with the "triple virus" - the serum against measles, rubella and mumps - and in unvaccinated adults or those with doubts.
"Measles is very contagious," he stressed and indicated that the infant mortality rate, which in 1996 reached 17.5%, has been around 6.3% in recent years, while recalling that Ukraine, Romania and the United Kingdom have registered significant outbreaks and the disease in countries like the United States rebounds annually due to refusal or forgetting to vaccinate.
In 2019, the Ministry of Health established in its common vaccination calendar an appeal to those born after 1970, citizens at that time between 40 and 50 years old, who were not sure whether they had received the two necessary doses of the vaccine or not. have suffered measles.
A vaccination protocol to which the 2021-2025 measles and rubella prevention plan has been added, which includes measures agreed with the communities.
It has an attack rate of more than 90% and is transmitted by aerosols, direct contact with nasal or pharyngeal secretions and can be spread four to four days after the rash appears on the skin.
It can also lead to other serious infections, severe diarrhea, pneumonia and encephalitis.
The microbiologist and spokesperson for the SEIMC points out that the first signs of viral infection can be confused with other processes, so that it begins with respiratory symptoms, cough, mucus, conjunctivitis and, later, it is differentiated from chickenpox because its rash begins in the face and neck and extends to the hands and palms of the feet.
