I understand the fears. But vaccinating children should be compulsory | Suzanne Moore

Engaging the emotional intelligence of the public is the way to sell the scientific fact that immunisation prevents deaths

When Roald Dahl’s daughter Olivia was seven, she fell ill. He thought she was on the way to recovery and often read to her. “I was sitting on her bed, showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything,” he said. An hour later, she was unconscious. Twelve hours later, she was dead.

Olivia died of a disease that we can now prevent, but which some choose not to: measles. Measles cases are soaring in Europe again; last year, there were more than 21,000 cases and 35 deaths, up from 5,273 cases the year before, a massive increase. The eminently achievable aim has always been to eradicate measles completely because the vaccine is so effective, but take-up of measles immunisation is dropping in many countries.

Continue reading... February 22, 2018 at 02:30PM