A 6-year-old boy died of diphtheria in Barcelona, Spain. This is the first time since 1987. He was not vaccinated and battled the disease for a month.
This is a first that we would have done well. For the first time since 1987, a person has died of diphtheria in Spain. The 6-year-old remained hospitalized for a month before the disease took hold. He was not vaccinated.
The Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona confirmed the death of the patient on June 27 on Twitter. Hospitalized since mid-May, the 6-year-old boy suffered from diphtheria. Her antitoxin treatment was delayed. Indeed, Spain no longer had the drug. In the end, it was Russia, where the disease is still rife, that urgently provided the treatment.
Ten people around the boy were infected with diphtheria. But they were vaccinated and therefore did not develop symptoms. The patient’s parents, on the other hand, had refused to vaccinate their child. They feared the side effects described by anti-vaccination groups. Today, they say they are “deceived” by groups who have described their ideas without addressing the risks of such behavior.
Respiratory disease
Diphtheria is an infectious respiratory disease caused by three species of bacteria: Corynebacterium diphtheriae, Corynebacterium ulcerans and Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. They produce a toxin that infects the upper respiratory tract and can paralyze the central nervous system, even the diaphragm and throat. Most often, the infection manifests itself within 2 to 5 days of exposure and causes pharyngitis, fever, neck swelling and headache.
In France, the last indigenous case, that is to say declared on the territory, occurred in 1989. But between 2002 and 2012, 8 infections were imported, according to the Pasteur Institute.
A European controversy
In Spain, 95% of the population is vaccinated against diphtheria. This is sufficient coverage to confer collective protection. No epidemic should therefore break out. But as elsewhere, controversies are emerging around this medical act. The head of health for the autonomous community of Catalonia, Boi Ruiz, therefore issued a call to order. “We appeal to parents: that they vaccinate their children, he declared at a press conference. That something like this happens to us, in a country where access to vaccination is free and universal, should, as a society, make us think. “
This sad event occurs in a tense context in France. Professor Henri Joyeux, oncologist, launched a petition which denounces the presence of dangerous substances in polyvalent vaccines, particularly Infanrix hexa. Nearly 700,000 people have signed this text, denounced by the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine. The National Council of the Order of Physicians (CNOM) has, for its part, announced its intention to prosecute the oncologist, or even to deregister him.
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