It is not only India but even several countries across the globe are witnessing the anti-vaccine movement particularly myths circulated on social media, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare the disturbing trend as one of the ten biggest health threats that the humanity faces in 2019.
Other key threats for 2019 in the list, that the WHO compiles every year and was released recently, include climate change, air pollution, a global influenza pandemic, dengue, poor primary healthcare facilities, HIV and ebola.
Reluctance or refusal to immunise “threatens to reverse progress” made in tackling preventable diseases, the UN health body has noted. “Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease — it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved. An estimated 1,10,000 people, mainly children, died from the vaccine-preventable disease across the world in 2017,” said the WHO.
Though, India, is a biggest exporter of vaccine, it has failed to reach out to every needy kid because of several reasons including vaccine hesitancy.
The WHO warning comes after a 30 per cent spike in measles cases worldwide, including in several countries where the virus had been virtually eliminated. In India too, measles cases are on increase.
“The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy,” the WHO said. “However, some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence,” the WHO said terming it as ‘of serious concern.’
With nine out of ten people breathing polluted air every day, air pollution has been touted as the greatest environmental threat in 2019. Microscopic pollutants in the air can penetrate respiratory and circulatory systems, damaging the lungs, heart and brain, killing 7 million people prematurely every year from diseases such as cancer, stroke, heart and lung disease. “Around 90 per cent of these deaths are in low- and middle-income countries, with high volumes of emissions from industry, transport and agriculture, as well as dirty cookstoves and fuels in homes,” as per the global health agency.
The primary cause of air pollution (burning fossil fuels) is also a major contributor to climate change, which impacts people’s health in different ways. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 2,50,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)- the ability of bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi to resist these medicines - threatens to send us back to a time when we were unable to easily treat infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis. India is already battling with AMR cases in TB.
While India has launched Ayushman Bharat scheme aiming to help the poor people to avail medical facilities free of cost at the tertiary hospital, primary health care which is usually the first point of contact people have with their health care system, remain wanting.
Dengue is yet another threat that the countries including India will have to tackle in 2019. A high number of cases occur in the rainy seasons of countries such as Bangladesh and India.
Also, though much progress has been made against HIV, the epidemic continues to rage with nearly a million people every year dying of HIV/AIDS. Today, around 37 million worldwide live with HIV. Reaching people like sex workers, people in prison, men who have sex with men, or transgender people is hugely challenging. Often these groups are excluded from health services, noted the WHO. In India, new pockets are witnessing emergence of HIV cases.