Soccer World Cup Could Cause New Wave of Measles Cases in Mexico, Experts Warn
The viral threat posed by the current measles outbreak in Mexico, with more than ten thousand cases registered and 31 deaths since last year, could intensify during the Soccer World Cup with a new wave of infections caused by the mobility of millions of visitors, health experts warned this Friday. Dr. Jorge Baruch Díaz, head of the traveler's clinic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Unam), explained that the World Cup will cause an increase in measles cases in Mexico, which is "very contagious" and transmitted through the air, he recalled. "Very surely in the three countries organizing the World Cup (United States, Mexico and Canada), after the tournament, there will be a wave of infections. So, that will happen because none of the three countries will be able to vaccinate that 10% that we are missing to achieve immunization in less than four months," he said. In his opinion, the rebound will be "significant" among people who have not yet been vaccinated, so he urged to "intensify" vaccination campaigns in view of the sporting event, since it is "impossible" to achieve collective immunity in the little more than hundred days left before the tournament begins. Baruch assured that this increase in cases will produce a "delay" in the return to the certification of countries free of measles in North America, which Mexico still maintains but which it "will surely lose" before the start of the World Cup, whose inaugural match will be on June 11. However, he clarified, this situation will not mean that the measles outbreak will "get out of control" in Mexico thanks to its health policy, since "we are scaling up" to achieve national immunity. For her part, Dr. Areli Pérez, medical director of the NGO Medical Impact, commented that an increase in infections due to the World Cup event is a "possibility", but she expressed confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccination campaigns deployed by the Government. Given this forecast, Dr. Baruch conveyed the "clear message" to attendees of the tournament to get vaccinated against measles, for which he described Mexico's initiative to promote the inclusion of this recommendation to FIFA as "accurate". This, furthermore, is done to avoid "lowering our guard" and causing the virus to reach countries where it is not yet "endemic," pointed out Dr. Pérez. For the expert, the strategy should focus on "case control" prior to the sporting event. Likewise, she called attention to the fact that the epidemic "preys" on the most vulnerable communities, such as rural or indigenous groups in states like Jalisco (west) or Chiapas (south), two of the ones that present the most cases in the entire country. "A lot of prevention measures have been discussed (...) But what is truly valuable is vaccination (...) we must raise awareness and take the vaccine to 100% of the population," she concluded. The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, insisted again this Friday that they have enough vaccines to vaccinate the population, especially the most vulnerable groups most affected by the epidemic.
