Doctors fear outbreak of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases in Ukraine

Global health officials have warned that there will be an increase in Covid-19 in Ukraine linked to the invasion of Russia, but doctors are also concerned about a rise in other infectious diseases: polio, cholera and measles.
Before the war, Ukraine had low vaccination rates against these diseases, Kate White, manager of Doctors Without Borders’ emergency program, told CNN this Tuesday (15th).

“In terms of what we call vaccine-preventable diseases, the status in Ukraine is that the population has not been vaccinated to get enough immunity, as in many other European countries or like the US,” White told CNN.

“Given that was the baseline, and now we have a situation where that system or routine immunization is no longer working because the health system has been disrupted — and on top of that, there’s the general public health situation, so many cities where lack of access to healthcare is compromised, some places where they don’t have the water supply they used to have, they don’t have electricity, there are sanitation problems – so all these risk factors stack on top of each other, which means that there is an increased risk,” White said, referring to diseases such as polio, cholera and measles.

“There was an outbreak of polio in Ukraine last year,” White said. “Ukraine was the last country in Europe to have a cholera outbreak in 2011, and that was in Mariupol. And as you probably know, Mariupol now has significant problems with water and sanitation and an inability to carry out basic daily activities around hygiene.”

The city of Mariupol remains one of the main sites of Russian attacks and damage. “There’s also a risk of measles,” White said. “The initial vaccination status was not particularly high.”

White added that he has heard of some doctors and volunteers who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Ukraine, but “testing capacity is minimal at the moment.”

Last week, World Health Organization officials said that as the pandemic continues, the invasion of Russia will affect the spread of the coronavirus.
“Certainly, there will be an increase in Covid-19 in the population of Ukraine, without a doubt, because not testing, without access to treatment, with vaccinations stopped and there is already low vaccination — I think it was around 34% or 35% the rate of vaccination before conflict,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said at a press conference last week.

“So there are a lot of people who still remain vulnerable to infection.”

Source: CNN Brasil

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