Not only COVID-19, many other diseases are raging in Ukraine
Uncontrolled COVID-19 epidemic and vaccination interruption
The health crisis has culminated in the presence of COVID-19, while access to immunizations and essential health care services have been impaired due to the operation of health facilities and the road is broken.
“The decline in COVID-19 testing means that the number of undetected infections is very high,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) recently.
Jarno Habicht, head of the WHO Ukraine office also said that across Ukraine, the vaccination rate for COVID-19 is particularly low with only about 65% in the capital Kiev, while in other regions this rate is very low. only 20%. This increases the risk of serious illness.”
140,000 children have their polio vaccinations suspended
Ukraine has been grappling with an outbreak of polio due to a lack of a vaccine. Polio virus has been isolated from 19 healthy contacts. Because this virus only paralyzes 1 in 200 infected people, the actual outbreak is much larger than the number of people detected. Moreover, the disease also attacks the surveillance mechanism so that the virus can be spreading undetected (as warned by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – GPEI, based in Geneva). The conflict has halted a lengthy vaccination campaign for nearly 140,000 children (immunization was launched on February 1, 2022).
Measles epidemic in danger of coming back
Measles epidemic is also a very difficult problem. In 2017, Ukraine experienced a measles outbreak and it lasted until 2020 with more than 115,000 cases.
In 2020, it is reported that the national coverage rate with 2 doses of measles vaccine is up to 82%. This is a big improvement in vaccination campaigns, but still not enough to prevent outbreaks.
More worryingly, this vaccine coverage is concentrated in cities, while in some provinces, such as Kharkiv, where large numbers of people have fled the conflict, vaccine coverage is less than 50%.
A doctor administers a measles vaccine to a child at the Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. Image source: UNICEF
“As Ukrainians migrate, we have to expand surveillance in surrounding countries for polio, measles, and measles,” said Heather Papowitz, WHO’s Ukraine incident manager. and COVID-19 to prevent the disease from spreading”.
The risk of drug-resistant TB increases due to treatment interruption
Ukraine has one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) in the world. It is estimated that about 32,000 people contract tuberculosis each year, and about one-third of new TB cases result from drug resistance.
Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. The disease was made worse by overcrowding and poverty. TB is spread through respiratory droplets and when living in a cramped and deprived environment, the risk of disease transmission is very high.
A nurse from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine distributes medicine to patients in the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) area in Zhytomyr (Ukraine). Photo source: Oksana Parafeniuk
Drug-resistant TB arises when the patient does not adhere to the daily drug regimen. Any interruption of treatment will lead to drug-resistant TB, including multidrug-resistant TB. After 5 years without treatment, 50% of people with pulmonary TB may die. Meanwhile, the patient infects many people around. On the other hand, interrupting the treatment of MDR-TB is likely to produce more severe symptoms, with few drugs working to cure it.
Diagnosis and treatment of TB cases have decreased by 30% during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past 2 years, resulting in increased transmission.
Access to HIV/AIDS treatment decreases
In Ukraine, an estimated 260,000 people are living with HIV by the end of 2020. Of these, only 69% know they have the disease, 57% are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and 53% have suppressed the virus (according to the report). data from the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). UNAIDS’ global goal is to achieve a 95% rate for each of these cases by 2025.
But access to HIV/AIDS treatment is also in jeopardy in Ukraine, which ranks second in Eastern Europe in terms of the number of people living with the disease. About 1% of Ukraine’s population has HIV/AIDS, but the actual number may be much higher, especially in high-risk groups: 7.5% in the gay community and about 21% in the gay community. injecting drug users.
“Don’t interrupt HIV treatment,” said Raman Hailevich, Director of UNAIDS.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can keep HIV under control and help protect against infections (tuberculosis; preventing people at risk of HIV infection; preventing mother-to-child transmission). If taken correctly, ART can reduce the viral load to the lowest level at which people cannot transmit HIV. But if treatment is interrupted, the situation will become difficult to control.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: cafebiz.vn – Read the original article here
