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martyb writes:

Measles is Killing More People in the DRC Than Ebola-And Faster:

Since January 2019, officials have recorded over 100,000 measles cases in the DRC, mostly in children, and nearly 2,000 have died. The figures surpass those of the latest Ebola outbreak in the country, which has tallied not quite 2,500 cases and 1,665 deaths since August 2018. The totals were noted by World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a speech today, July 15, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland.

"Frankly, I am embarrassed to talk only about Ebola," Dr. Tedros said (he goes by his first name). He gave the speech in response to two new developments in the Ebola outbreak. That is that two Ebola responders were murdered in their home in the DRC city of Beni, and that officials on Sunday had identified the first case of Ebola in Goma, a DRC city of over one million at the border with Rwanda.

"Both of these events encapsulate the challenges we continue to face on a daily basis in DRC," he said. Tedros was referring to the scattering of disease—including Ebola and measles—as violence hampers outbreak responses and access to medical care. Since January, officials have counted 198 attacks on health responders, which left seven dead and 58 healthcare works and patients injured.

[...] So far, the Ebola outbreak has largely stayed in DRC's North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which sit on the eastern side of the country and border South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda. The measles outbreak, on the other hand, has spanned at least 23 of the country's 26 provinces. The health ministry declared an outbreak on June 10 and noted a 700% spike in the case count over the count in the first half of last year.

"And yet it gets little international attention," Dr. Tedro noted, adding that malaria also kills more than 50,000 people each year in the DRC.

Measles cases in developed countries are rarely fatal because of the availability of effective treatment at health care facilities. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases — just entering a room where an infected person passed through a few hours ago could lead to an infection because the disease exhibits airborne transmission. Further, people who have measles are contagious for 1-4 days before they exhibit any symptoms.

Should an outbreak take hold, it could overwhelm facilities' ability to treat all infected people. This is especially so if such an outbreak came during, say, flu season when hospitals are already under an increased load and fewer beds would be available for a concomitant measles outbreak.

And not just for your own health, either. Infants and the immune-compromized rely on herd immunity to keep them safe. As long as something like 93% of people have been vaccinated and have the vaccine "take", any instance of the disease would be hard-pressed to encounter another host to infect. At lower vaccination rates, there are enough susceptible people around that disease transmission becomes increasingly possible to the point that an epidemic could arise.

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