In the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, the Ebola outbreak, with a death toll of over 10,000 people, has finally gotten under control. Following the West African nations' slow recovery from the outbreak, however, another disturbing fact might take place very soon.
A recent study by an expert team in epidemiology and public health from Johns Hopkins, Princeton University, and four other institutions observed that because of the Ebola epidemic, the healthcare system in these countries deteriorated and resulted in a more severe pandemic crisis.
As nobody comes to health facilities for fear of being infected by the Ebola, many clinics were deactivated. For the same reason, people are also hesitant to visit the remaining open health facilities.
In Sierra Leone, open clinics have received 70 percent less patients during the outbreak and an even more extreme case is happening in Monrovia, Liberia, where more than half of the health care centers shut down. Now, nearly half of the babies and children under 12 in the region are vaccinated - much worse than the conditions before the Ebola outbreak, when unvaccinated children were only accounted for 4 percent.
It means among fatal diseases to circulate, measles is likely to be the first disease to become a pandemic. The researchers further said that there will be potentially 16,000 deaths and 227,000 total measles infections. Measles survivors may suffer brain damage, deafness, and blindness.
To prevent this horror from happening, the team emphasizes the importance of the World Health Organization, the local government, and other health organizations to very quickly act by conducting vaccination campaigns.
"While the downstream effects of Ebola are many, we can actually do something about measles relatively cheaply and easily, saving many lives by restarting derailed vaccination campaigns," Lessler, one of the researchers says.
Surely, the area where WHO and other health organizations will be delivering the aid must be declared free from Ebola. However, WHO and the Measles and Rubella Initiative suggested the postponement of the campaign until 42 days after the declaration to make sure of the sterility of the area.
