Sixteen students from a private school in Saint-Tropez, in the Var, contracted measles in early March. Three of them had to be hospitalized and a CM2 student has still not been able to return to his class.
The measles epidemic continues. According to France News16 students from the private school Saint-Anne, in Saint-Tropez, recently contracted this highly contagious and potentially fatal disease in early March.
Only one child vaccinated against measles
The hearth was discovered during the last winter holidays. “I was informed by a mother of a case of measles while this family was staying in the Bahamas”, tells France Info Frédérique Pleindoux-Garin, the director of the primary school. Immediately informing the parents of students by e-mail, she quickly learned of the existence of 15 other cases in her establishment, as well as another in a high school in the city.
Among the 16 students affected by measles, was in particular that of the child placed in quarantine for a week in Costa Rica with his family. Traveling with his parents, he reintroduced measles to the country, when no case had been recorded there since 2014.
Three primary school students were also hospitalized and a CM2 student has still not returned to school.
How to explain such an upsurge in measles in this school? According to Christine Ortmans, head of the monitoring and health security department within the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Paca, “many children were not vaccinated”. She specifies that the director of the establishment did indeed send the list of sick children to the ARS, but refused to communicate to it the count of children vaccinated or not vaccinated against measles. “We are required to check the compulsory vaccinations with the visit of the maternal and child protection [en moyenne section]which accompanies us”, pleads the director of the primary school Saint-Anne Frédérique Pleindoux-Garin. This is not the case with the vaccination against measles, which is optional for the pupils concerned.
According to the ARS, only one of the sick children had been properly vaccinated, with the two necessary doses of vaccine. A quarter had only received one dose and three out of four had not been vaccinated at all.
Too low vaccination coverage in France
This weak vaccination of children against measles is far from being limited to this primary school in the Var. Combined with that against mumps and rubella (MMR), vaccination against measles has become compulsory for children born from January 1, 2018. Despite this measure, vaccination coverage remains largely insufficient in France: its current level is estimated at 79%, i.e. below the group immunity threshold, set at 95%.
At the beginning of February, it was the turn of the ski resort of Val Thorens to be affected by this disease. In total, 47 cases of measles have been identified there since the end of January according to the ARS, regional health agency. The first cases are mostly young seasonal adults residing in the station.
Measles is an infectious disease caused by a highly contagious virus that previously affected mainly young children from 5–6 months. This is no longer the case: a third of the cases declared in France concern people over the age of 15. “A sick person can contaminate up to 20”, recalled the beginning of March the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn in an interview granted to the Parisian. Measles is, for example, 10 times more contagious than the flu. It is transmitted very easily from one person to another through the air, during coughing, sneezing, or by contact with contaminated objects (toys, handkerchiefs, etc.).
Hence the need to get vaccinated. “Vaccination is also an altruistic gesture towards the most fragile,” says Agnès Buzyn. “Most of the northern countries, where there is no mistrust of the vaccine, are not affected by these epidemics.”
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