Editorial: Recovering lost ground in vaccination

The decline in coverage is due to resistance from parents and educators, which came in the wake of the pandemic when vaccines in general were ridiculous targets. Disinformation campaigns. When vaccination campaigns were announced at education centres and open schools, health workers started noticing absences among children. Disinformation campaign Released by anti-vaccination groups.

The Ministry of Health has been sounding the alarm since the end of the pandemic in 2021, when coverage was falling. Since then, every epidemiological bulletin has expressed the experts’ concerns. In February of this year, they presented data for 2023 and expressed their concerns in the following terms: “It is necessary to continue the collaboration and improve the different institutions, the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) and the Ministry of Public Education (MEP), among others, so that this risk group can complete the vaccination program and increase coverage until May. It is necessary to work on increasing coverage, they are very important vaccines for the prevention of diseases that can have a significant impact on the country’s public health.”

The Epidemiological Bulletin of May 3 publicly condemned Anti-vaccine groups: “They have taken action against the campaign; emails, audios and text messages sent to all school principals across the country are striking. This has impacted the entire process and fueled resistance from parents, educators and principals.” At times, vaccination teams have had difficulty entering educational centers.

This trend represents a serious setback for the country’s public health. Achievement They are comparable to levels in many developed countries. This is thanks to an intensive and effective vaccination campaign carried out before the pandemic, when misinformation about vaccines against covid-19 was unleashed, and then expanded to include other vaccines of our time that are questionably less successful.

In Costa Rica, a small number of measles outbreaks have been imported from developed countries, where anti-vaccine sentiment has gained some attention. It is ironic that such a dangerous disease has been found in a country where the disease has spread to a large extent. American Family Living in Kobano and another French tourists. my country has not had any local measles cases since 2006. When international media such as the British BBC broke the news, Holder “Unvaccinated French children reintroduced measles into Costa Rica,” they said.

The effectiveness and safety of vaccines are beyond doubt. The Americas were the first region in the world to eliminate not only measles, but also smallpox, polio, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome. The only explanation for such extraordinary progress is a massive vaccination program with well-documented results, including very low risks.

Social networks exacerbate the damage done by anti-vaccine myths, not only because of the speed and reach of messages, but also because they often reach recipients from friends and family they trust. That credibility transfers to their messages, regardless of how much they know about the subject. The challenges are daunting, and as the February bulletin said, coordination among agencies is essential to developing sustained information campaigns in classrooms and communities. Regaining lost ground is critical.