JERUSALEM (VINnews) — A two-year-old girl who contracted measles after not being vaccinated was pronounced dead on Saturday night in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
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The toddler had been hospitalized ten days earlier in critical condition due to complications from the disease and was connected to an ECMO (heart-lung) machine. Despite intensive medical treatment, she passed away last night.
Her death brings the total number of fatalities from the current measles outbreak in Israel to eight, all infants and toddlers under the age of two and a half who had not been vaccinated.
According to medical officials, all eight deaths could likely have been prevented had the children received the measles vaccine, which has been proven highly effective in preventing severe complications from the illness.
Just last week, the Ministry of Health published data showing a rise in vaccination rates in charedi cities, though the ministry’s current campaign has yet to halt the spread of the disease completely.
In Jerusalem, the number of vaccinations administered has increased by 500% compared to the same period last year, while in Beit Shemesh the increase stands at 630%. As a result, vaccination coverage among children has risen from 77% to 83% in Jerusalem, and from 72% to 82% in Beit Shemesh.
Nationally, the vaccination rate for the first measles shot now stands at around 89%. However, public health experts emphasize that a rate of at least 95% is needed to achieve full community protection and stop transmission of the virus.
So far, approximately 1,800 measles cases have been diagnosed in Israel. Of these, 562 patients have been hospitalized, 90% of them children. However, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Head of Public Health Services at the Ministry of Health, has warned that the real number of infections is likely several thousand higher.
Health officials acknowledge that thousands of children across the country remain unvaccinated. Within the charedi sector, community leaders and health authorities are hoping that a more effective awareness campaign can prevent the next avoidable death from measles.
It always amazes me that people who have not even finished high school know better than scientists, researchers, epidemiologists, doctors, professors.
Looks like that vitamin A hasn’t helped these kids. I guess it’s because that information didn’t come from a medical journal but some blogger. You trust the doctor for your diabetes, you trust them for chemo, trust them here too
i am bothered by the fact that I have heard many parents say that their children don’t need the vaccine because they have emunah. This is like saying that you are very sick but won’t see a doctor because you have emuna. It is shtus. It is contrary to Yiddishkeit. It is beyond tragic that their lack of understanding has resulted in the death of so many babies.
I am afraid that some of these parents who shout emunah do not have emunah. If they did, they would not be afraid of vaccinating their children, which has virtually eradicated many childhood diseases, including measles. Their fear shows a lack of emunah.
I am mystified how so many kids fall from what was a common childhood disease when I grew up.
I also must state that while I personally am against the MMR at 18 months, there are alternatives such as a vaccine for measles (alone) that I personally am not against.
Let me repeat before this blows up, I am not against vaccines for all the diseases covered by the MMR. I am concerned with the MMR at 18 months.