The number of measles patients is growing rapidly. We are threatened with an epidemic?

More and more Europeans, unfortunately, experience this on their own skin: a terrible spottogenic, red rash that begins behind the ears, and then goes down on the face, neck and lower, this is the beginning of the Oder.

Last year, almost 130,000 people got it in the European region. This is a gigantic number: twice as much as in 2023 and most in over a quarter of a century.

– Odra has returned and this is a warning signal. Without a high vaccination indicator, there is no health safety – warns Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO regional director to Europe.

Epidemically, the European region is Europe plus the countries of the former Soviet Union. Of these almost 130,000, 40 percent, so a lot are children under the age of five. And it's hardly surprising, since in this area in 2023 as many as half a million children did not receive the first dose of the Odra vaccine.

According to the World Health Organization, the countries of the World Health Organization are, next to Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, Romania is also near us. An outbreak of the Odra epidemic may also take place in Poland at any time.

– We cannot rule out such a scenario if people with the Oder come to Poland. Let us remember that in Poland the Odra primarily begins with people who bring the Odra to Poland and then such micro -beans come to – indicates Dr. Paweł Grzesiowski, chief sanitary inspector.

This is a mechanism known all over the world. The Odra was also brought to Texas in the United States. Two fatal cases have already been reported there. Further illnesses appeared in Florida.

– We have cases of people who have not vaccinated, and then went abroad somewhere or someone from abroad came here, and they were infected – indicates Dr. Gary Kramer, a doctor from Florida.

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That is why it is so important to vaccinate. In Poland, children against measles have been vaccinated for 50 years.

– I was still suffering from measles. It was a generation when there was no vaccination, my children were not. I have worsened my eyes on the Oder, but it may be worse, because in the children's population the worst complication is severe pneumonia – indicates prof. Ernest Kuchar, head of the Pediatric Clinic with the observation department of the Medical University of Warsaw.

To foreigners staying in Poland, the government intends to direct an information campaign to help them decide to vaccinate themselves and children.

– Foreigners have not only a language problem, but above all organizational. They often do not have their family doctor, they do not have their own POZ and therefore access to vaccinations for them is completely different than for Poles – notes Paweł Grzesiowski.