Every year from 300 to 350 children die from the infectious diseases in Ukraine, chief pediatric infectious disease specialistof the Health Minister of Ukraine Serhiy Kramarev has said.
“Every year from 300 to 350 children die from infectious diseases in Ukraine, of whom 130-200 are one-year-olds,” he said at the press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
According to the doctor, there are vaccines against the majority of infections the children die of.
“And if the children were vaccinated in time, they wouldn’t have suffer the consequences of these diseases,” he said.
According to the infection specialist, the use of vaccines registered in Ukraine against many diseases has significantly reduced the disease rate in Ukraine.
Deputy Head of the WHO Office in Ukraine Ihor Pokanevych stated: “Unfortunately, a lot of non-experts are involved in the immunization problem in Ukraine.”
Moreover, he noted that the politicians have an influence on the immunization program.
“An example is 2008, when the program of the additional immunization against measles and rubella was frustrated, which caused over 12,000 registered cases of measles in 2012 because of such non-professional influence on immunization programs,” Pokanevych said.
However, the chief out-off-staff specialist in children’s immunology of the Health Ministry Liudmyla Chernyshova said: “The inquiry showed that none of death cases was caused by vaccination, there were just coincidences in time.”
