Most Germans want to vaccinate children

DAK survey: Four out of five Germans are in favor of vaccination

12/07/2013

In the course of a significant increase in measles diseases, the subject of vaccination is not only discussed in the health authorities. According to a survey by the health insurance DAK-health, 82 percent of people are in favor of introducing a compulsory vaccination. Other commonly treated as childhood illnesses such as mumps or whooping cough can even in adulthood take severe courses. Only in June, a 14-year-old boy had died from the sequelae of a measles infection.

79 percent of Germans want to be vaccinated
After the measles outbreaks in Bavaria, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia, the demand for a vaccination obligation is getting louder. After Minister of Health Daniel Bahr (FDP) described the decision of parents who do not have their children vaccinated against measles as irresponsible, the introduction of a vaccination requirement is gaining more and more followers. For example, the Professional Association for Paediatricians (BVKJ) also supports general vaccination.

According to a survey of the health insurance DAK health, the request is also popular in broad sections of the population. According to this, four out of five Germans (79 percent) support the introduction of compulsory vaccination. Of these, 82 percent stated that consistent vaccination reduced the number of cases. 73 percent believe that vaccination is particularly useful because many parents were too lighthearted with the subject. Just over two-thirds (68 percent) believe that supposed childhood illnesses are generally underestimated.

This opinion is also the DAK doctor Elisabeth Thomas. The term teething is played down. This is finally about „serious illnesses that can have serious consequences, including death. Only consistent vaccination could push back so far“. It was important to continue this project. According to the recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), especially adults born after 1970 should be vaccinated. Even people who could come in contact with the pathogens professionally, should not give up vaccination.

As the DAK survey shows, people in eastern Germany in particular are in favor of compulsory vaccination. 93 percent of respondents from the new federal states supported this. In northern Germany, it was 72 percent and in Bavaria 71 percent.

Vaccination can reduce severe measles disease
Many people were surprised by the current discussion that just a childhood disease such as measles can lead to significant health problems and even death in the worst case. Even after many years of the onset of typical measles symptoms, it may be too „Long-term consequences such as meningitis or disability“ come, explained Thomas.

While serious side effects with long-term consequences of measles vaccination are very rare - according to DAK health in one in a million children vaccinated against measles - can develop severe and even life-threatening disease, for example, with pneumonia, especially in older and immunocompromised people. But even in previously healthy, younger people, a measles infection can be fatal. So the so-called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a generalized inflammation of the brain with nerve demyelinating, occurs very rarely (about one in 10,000 measles patients), but causes the most serious damage and inevitably leads to the death of the person affected. It was not until June that a 14-year-old boy died of SSPE.

Statistically, one in every 1,000 measles patients has encephalitis, which can lead to severe damage and disability and can also be fatal.

Vaccination opponents insist on the right of self-determination of the parents
The opponents of vaccination took a share of 19 percent of respondents in the DAK survey. With 76 percent, they pointed above all to the parents' right of self-determination. In addition, many worried about possible vaccine side effects.

Jan Leidel, chairman of STIKO, recently told the newspaper „Rheinische Post“, that he does not see a solution to the problem in a general vaccination obligation. Society is skeptical of any compulsion. Therefore, a duty to vaccine is counterproductive. In addition, the expert asks himself what the consequences of non-compliance could look like.

In the Federal Republic of Germany there was already a vaccination against smallpox until 1983. In the GDR, among other things, the law prescribed vaccinations against smallpox, polio and measles. (Ag)