Measles toddler ‘out of danger’

A three-year-old child who contracted measles is “out of danger” and in a “good condition” under treatment at the Makarios hospital in Nicosia, the hospital’s paediatric department director Avraam Ilias said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), he did note, however, that the discovery of two cases of measles among infants on the island had “caused concerns” among doctors and scientists.

He added that concern is also spreading at the European level, given that measles cases have been on the rise across the continent since June 2023.

This, he said, is mainly due to two reasons. The first is that “a large proportion of the population is not vaccinated, either because parents have not taken the time to get their children vaccinated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, or because they have outright refused to get their children vaccinated.”

The second reason, he said, was the large movement of people from countries where there was measles and vaccination was not offered, with the result that the disease found suitable breeding grounds.

Moving back to the matter of vaccinations, he pointed out that both children in Cyprus who have contracted measles “have no history of vaccination”.

He said measles vaccine uptake in Cyprus is “somewhat low” at around 80 per cent, and that for the general population to be protected against the disease, vaccination coverage must reach 95 per cent.

He pointed out that the measles vaccine has in the past been erroneously linked with autism.

“This accusation was primarily made in the United Kingdom in 1999 by a study published by a gastroenterologist,” he said, saying the study had listed the MMR – measles, mumps, and rubella – vaccine to the developmental disability.

He added, “the publication was subsequently proven to be false, the journal which published it retracted it, and the gastroenterologist had his licence revoked.”

However, he noted, the damage in some quarters had already been done, and “many people were not vaccinated at the time, leading to an outbreak of measles in Europe and mainly in the UK.”

With this in mind, he drew parallels with the anti-vaccine movement which sprung up around the Covid-19 vaccines, which has led to a number of people refusing vaccines.

He stressed therefore to point out that the measles vaccine “has proven to be a very effective and also a safe vaccine. People should have no hesitation to proceed with getting their children vaccinated.”

Also speaking to CNA on the matter, medical services director Elisavet Constantinou said children should receive their first measles vaccine dose at the age of 12 months, and their second when they reach four years old.

She added that the measles situation in Cyprus is “not alarming” but stressed “we are alert and are following very closely the epidemiological data in both Cyprus and Europe.”