The death toll of the most recent round of Ebola moved beyond 10,000 on Thursday Mar. 12, but the threat to West Africa isn't over yet, and children are at far greater risk. But it's not Ebola that health care experts are worried about now, but rather large outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases that could overrun the region.
The strain on the healthcare system by the Ebola outbreak derailed child immunizations in countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, leaving hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to more routine infections. Clusters have measles which has already begun cropping up in the countries worrying many researchers.
The new study warns that it is crucial to restart the immunization programs quickly, citing mathematical models that estimate that thousands could die if a large enough measles outbreak were to occur before the health care system has a chance to recover and act.
Measles epidemics often follow humanitarian crises because "measles is so incredibly contagious," explained Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Justin Lessler, who led the study published this week in the journal Science. "Measles is not the only health threat that has been made worse by the Ebola crisis, and may not even be the most dire, but it is one we can do something about."
In many of these countries, the threat of Ebola has begun to wane with Liberia beginning a 42-day countdown toward being declared Ebola-free. Guinea and Sierra Leone are still experiencing more new outbreaks but aren't experiencing as many new cases as they did in the fall.
Unfortunately, many hospitals were closed due to the outbreak and much of the population feared visiting the remaining hospitals. This led to many unnecessary deaths from common conditions such as childbirth and malaria.
Before the crisis, there were already approximately 778,000 unvaccinated children agest 9 months to 5 years in the three countries. For every month that Ebola disrupted the health care system, an extra 20,000 children became susceptible to the measles, according to the study.
Health services are slowly beginning to return to normal. In Liberia, for example, childhood vaccinations have resumed in many of the health care facilities again.
Now the big question is whether the measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases will be the next post-Ebola problem that the countries must tackle.
