The Ministry is asking health institutions to be alert to detect infections and also to increase vaccinations.
Given the increase in measles cases worldwide, the Ministry of Health, through the General Directorate of Epidemiology (DGE), issued an epidemiological notice on this disease so that public and private medical units are alert and can identify and diagnose cases on time.
This notice is not an alert for the general population, only for health institutions. “Through the epidemiological notice published today, the Ministry of Health calls on public and private medical units to verify strict compliance with epidemiological surveillance and laboratory diagnosis actions, to timely detect any possible case, whether imported or associated with importation,” the agency said.
The notice also calls for intensifying vaccination with measures such as house-to-house visits, placing vaccination posts in places with a high flow of people, and reviewing national health cards, especially in municipalities that are migrant and border population corridors.
From January 1 to December 8 (epidemiological weeks 1 and 49 of 2024), seven cases of measles have been confirmed in the country, all imported or associated with importation.
Measles is a disease caused by a virus that is transmitted by the dissemination of droplets suspended in the air or by direct contact with nasal or pharyngeal secretions of infected people.
Prevention is the key
The Ministry of Health invites mothers and fathers, guardians, or caregivers to take their children to be vaccinated to start or complete immunization schedules, in order to reduce damage to health and prevent the measles and rubella viruses from being reintroduced.
The measles vaccination schedule is two doses: the first at one year of age and the second at 18 months; although in the case of girls and boys born before 2022, they receive the second dose at six years of age.
Health centers in the 32 Mexican states have vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) for girls and boys ages one to nine, and against measles and rubella (MR) for adolescents ages 10 to 19 who did not receive the vaccine when it was due according to their age.
In the Americas region, in 2024, between epidemiological weeks 1 and 48, 452 cases of measles were confirmed, of which 14 were reported in Argentina, 2 in Bermuda, 3 in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, 4 in Brazil, 138 in Canada, 280 in the United States, 2 in the Turks and Caicos Islands, 7 in Mexico, and 2 in Peru.
San Miguel Times
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