Rubella permanently eradicated from the Americas

It’s official (and historic), rubella is now permanently eradicated from the American continent. It was PAHO (the Pan American Health Organization) that announced the disappearance of this disease viral epidemic usually mild. Almost 15 years of vaccinations on nearly 250 million people in 32 countries were necessary to permanently contain rubella. In the past fifty years, smallpox and polio had already been eradicated from American soil. ” The battle against rubella took over 15 years, but the efforts paid off. It is one of the biggest health success stories of 21^e century “ assures Carissa Etienne, director of PAHO.

250 million vaccines in 15 years

The disappearance of rubella is a boon for this continent at risk. Indeed, the disease had peaked in 1997. That year, 158,000 cases had been diagnosed, especially in South America and the Caribbean.
Worse still, the last major rubella epidemic (1964-1965) infected 20,000 children from birth in the United States alone. If the last case transmitted by the mother dates from 2009 on American territory, it was necessary to protect the inhabitants from the various threats from outside.

In Europe there is also a large vaccination campaign implemented in 2013 by the WHO to fight against rubella, a disease that killed nearly 150,000 people around the world in 2014.
If the long-term objective is to eradicate the disease definitively, it is also a question of stemming the various epidemics which affect several European countries since the beginning of the 21st.^e century. In Romania alone, 115,000 cases were recorded between 2002 and 2003. Austria and Bosnia-Herzegovina were affected to a lesser extent (a few hundred cases).

What now for measles?

For PAHO, although the disappearance of rubella is a real success, other battles are now to be waged. Indeed, measles has made its return across the Atlantic despite a disappearance announced in 2000. If the lack of vaccination is widely pointed out, other explanations are put forward by PAHO, in particular the trips to South Africa of Americans to support their team during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This country being largely affected, strains of the disease have been able to return to American territory.

Among the 166 cases identified in the United States since the beginning of the year, 117 have been linked to the epidemic which broke out at the end of 2014 in Califormia, within the Disney theme park.