{"id":8363,"date":"2022-06-10T04:11:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-10T04:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/?post_type=product&p=8363"},"modified":"2022-06-10T04:12:03","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T04:12:03","slug":"how-france-is-persuading-its-citizens-to-get-vaccinated","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/pt\/how-france-is-persuading-its-citizens-to-get-vaccinated\/","title":{"rendered":"How France is persuading its citizens to get vaccinated"},"content":{"rendered":"

One in three French people think vaccines are unsafe, but across the country vaccine coverage is rising. Alex Whiting looks at how France is fighting back against vaccine scepticism.<\/h4>\n
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In February this year, a holiday in paradise turned into a nightmare for one French family. Soon after their arrival in Costa Rica, their unvaccinated five-year-old son developed measles, the country\u2019s first case since 2014. The parents, also unvaccinated, tested positive for the virus too. They were believed to have brought it from France.<\/p>\n

The family were swiftly quarantined, and the Costa Rican authorities contacted people at risk. A few weeks later, two American children \u2013 again, unvaccinated \u2013 also developed measles in the country. Again, the authorities had to act quickly to contain it.<\/p>\n

Measles is more contagious than Ebola, tuberculosis or flu, it has no specific treatment, and it can be picked up from the air or from surfaces for as long as two hours after an infected person has come and gone. Because it\u2019s so infectious, health experts see it as an early warning sign that there\u2019s a problem with vaccination coverage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMeasles is like a canary in the mine,\u201d says Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and a professor of anthropology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. To protect a population from measles, she says, at least 95 per cent of people need to be vaccinated \u2013 a higher threshold than for most other infections. This means that if vaccination rates start falling, \u201cit\u2019s going to be the first to show its ugly head\u201d.<\/p>\n

When last measured in 2017, Costa Rica had a vaccination rate of 96 per cent for the disease \u2013 a clear sign that its people shouldn\u2019t have been at risk from each other. That same year, France\u2019s measles coverage stood at only 90 per cent.<\/p>\n

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