What can you learn Germany from Mali

Fatmata Traoré has been waiting for a good four hours at more than 30 degrees in the shade on a vaccination for your twins. With dozens of other mothers, and small children sitting in the dusty courtyard of a health centre in the town of Mopti in Mali. You like to be kept waiting: “in the past, many children died here,” says the-Year at the end of 30 -. Whenever there had been an epidemic, should have been buried many mothers and their children, she recalls. “Now all the children are vaccinated.”

Vaccinations health organization (WHO) to prevent, according to the world annually two to three million deaths. However, in Germany and other rich countries, skepticism about vaccines is getting louder and louder. The WHO, the lack of Impfbereitschaft is already one of the biggest health risks in the world. The case numbers of preventable diseases like measles are rising rapidly.

The acceptance of vaccinations, Germany could learn something from poorer countries such as Mali. People perceive vaccination as a blessing, because many still remember times in which children are from preventable diseases such as measles, smallpox, or Tetanus died. “No one is afraid of vaccinations has therefore,” says the Doctor, Anne Kodio, head of the health centre in Mopti.

2.5 million fewer deaths by measles since 1980

The success of vaccinations is impressive: After the global introduction of measles vaccination the number of diseases has fallen dramatically. In 1980 died according to the WHO, about 2.6 million people to the virus disease, in 2017, there were still nearly 110,000. However, the number of measles cases in Europe has recently been multiplied from 5273 in 2016 to 23.927 in the following year. The return of such preventable diseases in Europe was “a Wake-up call” and demand “swift Action”, calls for the WHO.

The growing Here in the richer countries, according to experts, for various reasons, Sometimes parents are just careless and forget to provided for vaccinations. Others have doubts about the meaning of the many vaccinations. Some oppose vaccines, because they fear a high risk for side effects, even if there is no solid scientific evidence.

“The opponents are a very small but very active group,” says E. Sabine Wicker, University hospital Frankfurt. The vast majority of Germans were “Impfbefürworter,” said Wicker. She is a member of the Standing Committee on vaccination (Stiko), which developed the recommendations for the Federal Republic of Germany. If people were sick, they went to the doctor and well-accepted therapies, because they wanted to be healthy, explains Wicker. In the case of vaccinations, however, a healthy Person needs to be convinced of a preventive measure.

“There is no drug treatment without the risk of any side effects,” adds Wicker. She uses the example of measles, in order to explain the Risk assessment: In the case of a disease about one in every 1000 get statistically. Patient has an encephalitis, i.e. inflammation in the brain. It is permanent damage or even death may result. As a result of the vaccination, the risk of standing at about one in a Million. Wicker accounted for: “to Not vaccinate the much greater risk is.”

In the case of most vaccinations, Germany is still well: In the case of investigations to the start of School in 2016, approximately 95 percent of children against measles, Mumps and rubella were vaccinated, such as the Robert Koch Institute reported. The proportion of against diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio (poliomyelitis) vaccinated children, however, is gone since 2006 and is now below 95 percent. This threshold is considered by the WHO as the lower limit, in order to protect the population against new epidemics.

In Mali, vaccination campaigns have saved tens of thousands of children from death

While Impfskeptiker in Germany are more likely to be found in the educated middle class, is it in Mali are exactly the reverse: belief work must only be sometimes in the case of parents without any education to explain the Benefits of vaccination, says Doctor Kodio. Vaccination campaigns have saved in Mali – one of the poorest countries in the world – according to experts, already tens of thousands of children’s lives. In the year 2000, every fifth child died before the fifth birthday, in the meantime, it is, according to the world Bank, only every Tenth. In Germany, about one in every 300 dies. Pre-school child.

For the 65-year-old Malierin Mamou Sylla this statistic is not abstract: Four of her seven children died at birth or as small children. One of her daughters suffered from in addition to Polio and has since been physically disabled. “I’m not an expert, but what I had to experience that to me has enough taught,” she says. Today Sylla in your home Baraouéli helps at every vaccination campaign. She says: “I want other mothers to suffer the Same.”