Is the measles vaccine required for staff?

Measles vaccination compulsory recommended for medical personnel

30.06.2013

The measles are in the current back on everyone's lips, as it came in recent months to a particularly large number of new cases. One recent case shows that doctors who are not vaccinated can infect their patients. In a conversation with the news magazine „Focus“ an expert recommends a duty for doctors to vaccinate.

Ten months old girl infected
Germany is currently suffering from a measles epidemic. Especially in Bavaria and Berlin, the virus infection is rampant, and not only children can get sick of it. As a recent case shows, it is sometimes doctors who are not vaccinated who transmit the disease to their patients. For example, in a large Berlin hospital, a doctor suffering from a measles disorder had treated a heart problematic ten-month-old girl, who subsequently developed measles herself.

compulsory vaccination „desirable“
Due to the significant increase in the number of measles cases in recent months, a debate about targeted vaccination campaigns has been initiated. The Ratinger Pediatrician Martin Terhardt, member of the nationwide Standing Vaccination Commission, said in the new issue of the „Focus“ a duty to vaccinate medical personnel for „desirable.“

Years from 1970 often without adequate protection
Even though the infectious disease affects children in particular, adults are the focus of the currently rampant measles epidemic. Many of those born after 1970 have no or only incomplete vaccination protection. From 1970, measles vaccines were started and people who were previously born were often naturally protected by a past infection. Martin Lang, Chairman of the Bavarian Professional Association of Pediatricians, commented: „But 50 percent of the 19- to 39-year-olds are not sufficiently vaccinated today. "From this age group 20 to 30 percent would have no and the rest only one of the two required vaccinations.

Currently 984 measles cases
in the „Focus“ the medical specialist Terhardt speaks of one „Generation of the forgetful and ignorant“. In adults, the disease is often much more severe than in children. The importance of vaccination has recently been demonstrated by a case in North Rhine-Westphalia. There was a 14-year-old died of the sequelae of measles disease. At the age of five months he had been infected with the virus in the waiting room of a pediatrician. At this time, the child was still too young for a vaccine. According to „Focus“-The number of measles cases in Germany is currently 984 in all health ministries. With the exception of 2006 (2307 cases) and 2011 (1608 cases), this is already more than the sum of all illnesses in the years since 2004. (ad)