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Home Health & Wellness

Experts: Health Ministry mishandling ‎measles outbreak, endangers public

by  Bat-Chen Epstein Elias and Ran Reznik
Published on  11-07-2018 00:00
Last modified: 03-08-2021 13:28
Experts: Health Ministry mishandling ‎measles outbreak, endangers public

A measles vaccine

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A series of Health Ministry failures have led to the ‎recent outbreak of measles in Israel, which has ‎reached numbers not seen in the country in decades, ‎doctors and senior health care officials told Israel ‎Hayom Tuesday, saying the current situation was ‎nothing short of a "medical and administrative ‎meltdown."‎

Some 1,400 Israelis have contracted the disease so ‎far in 2018. Last week, an 18-month-old toddler died ‎of measles in Jerusalem.‎

According to these experts, this series of failures ‎are the reason Israel's main healthcare service ‎providers and its chain of Tipat Halav baby wellness ‎clinics are unable to meet the demand for vaccines.‎

Doctors and nurses leveled harsh criticism at the ‎Health Ministry over what they called its hesitation ‎with regard to real-time decision-making, which has ‎led Israel to the brink of one of its most severe ‎public health crises. ‎

Several experts said that the most prominent issue ‎at hand is the fact that, despite the growing number ‎of measles ‎cases, the Health Ministry has yet to ‎decide on the budgeting and implementation ‎of a ‎national vaccination campaign that would target, ‎first and foremost, the hundreds of thousands of ‎Israelis born between 1957 and 1977, who were not ‎fully immunized.‎

The experts were also very critical of the Health ‎Ministry for doing nothing to counter anti-vaccine ‎parents and doctors who dispense false and dangerous ‎information about the dangers of vaccines.‎

The critics say that the new measures the Health ‎Ministry seeks to employ to fight the measles ‎outbreak, which include setting up mobile baby ‎wellness clinics and adding nurses to clinics in ‎major cities, fall grossly short of dealing with the ‎situation. ‎ ‎

‎"These are small, hesitant steps that only ‎illustrate the lack of leadership in the Health ‎Ministry," a senior health care administrator told ‎Israel Hayom. ‎

‎"The problem is that the Health Ministry continues ‎to operate as if there is no medical emergency here ‎that actually endangers public health, and it has ‎not come up with any national plan to eliminate the ‎measles." ‎

Experts further leveled criticism at the Health ‎Ministry for not temporarily limiting the number of ‎medical tourists that arrived in Israel while the ‎threat of measles rages on, as they may be carriers ‎of the disease.‎

A statement by the Health Ministry said, "[Measles] ‎‎immunization rates in Israel are among the highest ‎in the world. The Health Ministry takes continuous ‎action on the ground, either by means of public ‎awareness campaigns in areas where vaccination rates ‎are lower or by directly contacting parents who have ‎not vaccinated their children."‎

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