What happens when not just one, but two outbreaks of infectious diseases strike a country? The people of Malta are in the midst of it.
After outbreaks of rubella and scarlet fever were confirmed in Malta this week, the country’s Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department has told the public there is no reason to be alarmed.
What struck me about these outbreaks is that neither of these diseases is common in Malta. One expert even went as far to call them rare illnesses in Malta. How does an illness rarely found in a part of the world turn up there?
Searching a bit, I also found that there were four confirmed cases of rubella this month in Sydney, Australia.
In this day and age, rubella has become somewhat or a rarity, with most infants receiving the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Children receive the first shot around the age of one and a booster dose at the age of 4 or 5. In the Australian cases, all four children were infants. Perhaps they had not yet received their MMR vaccines, which would explain their susceptibility to the disease. However, the three people who got rubella in Malta were in their 20s. It was confirmed that none of these three patients had the MMR vaccine.
Following up to my post on low immunization rates in American adults, maybe the U.S.’s National Foundation for Infectious Diseases has a point. Not enough people are getting vaccines. This problem spreads beyond the U.S. and to other countries in the world, such as Malta. Do I hear a global call for vaccination at hand?
