Sir, – There is an urgent need to protect Ukrainian refugees from vaccine-preventable illness.
A total of 50,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Ireland since February 2022. These populations are highly susceptible to vaccine-preventable disease, which means that optimising vaccine coverage to prevent disease outbreaks must be a priority.
Before the war, vaccination rates in Ukraine were among the lowest in Europe. In 2021, 20 per cent of children were not vaccinated against measles and 13 per cent were not vaccinated against polio. Just over one-third of the population had received two doses of Covid-19 vaccination. Low vaccine coverage has resulted in outbreaks of measles, with over 100,000 cases and 40 deaths between 2017 and 2020, representing the largest epidemic in Europe in the last decade. In 2021, an outbreak of vaccine-associated paralytic poliovirus was confirmed in over 20 children, two of whom suffered acute flaccid paralysis.
A mass vaccination campaign was abruptly interrupted by war.
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The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommend that all Ukrainian refugees should be offered vaccinations under the immunisation schedule of the host country, ideally within 14 days of arrival and with prioritisation of Covid-19, measles, and polio vaccines.
While all refugees arriving in Ireland are offered free healthcare including vaccines, access to vaccines can be challenging. GPs already struggling with high workloads and lack of resources are further challenged to meet demand as refugees continue to arrive in the country.
The kind of pragmatic and determined response to the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure the vaccination of the entire population as quickly and efficiently as possible must now be put in place to protect Ukrainian refugees as winter approaches and the risk of transmission of infection rises. – Yours, etc,
Dr CATHERINE CONLON,
Ballintemple,
Cork.