Photo: Tanjug/ Tanja ValičDoctors were not surprised that forgotten diseases are returning because fewer and fewer children are vaccinated
In the Children's Hospital in Novi Sad, in the last three months, three babies under the age of two months were treated for whooping cough.
There is a similar situation in Belgrade, where in one month at the Clinic in Tiršova, that diagnosis was recorded in the health records of five children, he writes. Euronews Serbia. Doctors were not surprised that forgotten diseases are returning, because fewer and fewer children are vaccinated.
Namely, the Law on the Protection of the Population from Infectious Diseases stipulates that children must receive protection against 11 infectious diseases, but many parents do not comply with this legal obligation. The law is clear and stipulates that if the child is not vaccinated, the parents pay a fine of 30.000 to 150.000 dinars. Postponement of vaccination is possible only if there are medical reasons, determined by a specialist doctor.
However, the Law is one thing, and what happens in practice is completely different. Violations of the law are frowned upon by parents. Proceedings conducted before the misdemeanor courts in Serbia generally expire, many end only with a warning, and very few parents receive a fine.
Pediatricians state that vaccination protects not only the child who received the vaccine, but also those children who cannot receive it for health reasons. If more than 95 percent of children are vaccinated, a strong collective immunity is created, and even if the disease appears, it cannot spread.
The toll of non-vaccination is already being paid by those who are the most vulnerable - newborns. Konstantinidis says that the first dose of whooping cough vaccine is given at the age of two months, and that the babies who were treated for whooping cough were younger. Therefore, they could not be protected by the vaccine.
The vaccine that protects against whooping cough or pertussis is DTP (di-te-per). Today, children receive the pentavalent vaccine - Pentaxim, which protects against whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus. They receive it in five doses. The primary vaccination consists of three doses and is given in the first six months (second, fourth and sixth months). The first revaccination is at 18 months, and then at seven years.
Whooping cough is also in Croatia
After Split, dangerous whooping cough was confirmed in three students of a primary school in Zagreb, and several of their contacts were also infected, writes the Croatian portal Danas. Children's infectious disease specialist Goran Tešović warns that there is a danger of accelerated spread of what he says is one of the most contagious infectious diseases in general.
"The infection is moving somewhere at the level of smallpox and some varieties of covid 19," specifies Tešović. The infection spreads through droplets, and it can be fatal for the youngest. It starts as a common cold, which is why milder forms cannot even be recognized clinically.
"After seven to ten days, a cough develops, which is typical and dry in attacks and is more frequent at night, patients suffocate because it causes them to feel short of breath." Very often, children vomit and do not have an elevated temperature," explains Dr. Tešović.
The situation in Zagreb is not yet as serious as it was in Split, where there are currently more than 70 patients.
MJ/Euronews
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