A 10-year-old unvaccinated girl spreads measles to five other children in Italy and alarms go off

Eight measles cases confirmed at the pediatric hospital Giovanni XXIII in Bari (of which five are children), they have raised alarms again in Italy.

The new outbreak seems to have its origin in a ten year old girl without vaccinating, who was hospitalized in the hospital's infectious diseases ward. According to the newspaper La Repubblica, the little girl would have infected her younger sister and a child just 11 months old admitted to an otitis in the same hospital, too small to be vaccinated.

Three more adults with measles

Three more cases of measles have also been detected in women that are related to the hospital center of Bari, although it is being investigated if they have the same origin.

One of them is a worker at the center and another was under emergency observation for 12 hours because of a suspicion of hepatitis, one of the possible complications of the virus.

The third woman, mother of twins, accompanied one of them to the children's hospital for other reasons, and it seems that she would have arrived with measles symptoms.

The prevention measures seem to have failed

Sources of the Italian hospital indicate that some of these cases could be due to an incorrect management of the contagious disease management protocol, so an internal audit is already being carried out to determine if the girl was not isolated or was not done correctly.

Following the facts, the Minister of Health, Giulia Grillo, has announced a new plan for the elimination of measles and rubella, already existing but not updated since 2011, as well as a circular to standardize the protocols for action in cases of appearance of these contagious diseases.

Italian protocols provide for isolation and the mere suspicion of a measles case should be reported to the Department of Prevention of Local Healthcare, "because measles is one of the most contagious diseases we know," said Maria Chironna, director of the laboratory of University epidemiology.

The expert adds that these cases have served to remind once again that the only measles prevention is the vaccine, and that the responsibility is not limited only to the welfare of their own children, but also to the environment around them.

In Babies and more The measles outbreak that threatens Europe: vaccination is the only solution

A measure with special relevance in Italy, where there has been a rebound in this infectious disease, which can be avoided with a vaccine that is recommended at 13 months.

In fact, the last report of the World Health Organization (WHO) on measles cases in Europe, pointed to this country as the fourth with the highest number of cases of this contagious disease during the first half of 2018 (2,020).

In 2017, four people died from this preventable disease with a vaccine "safe, efficient and economical", as WHO recalls.

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