Although monovaccines were available in the past, today in Switzerland only the triple vaccine is available. Source: infovac.ch

Just for general information, a 45-year-old British guy was diagnosed in my husband's office last week with whooping cough\pertussis\cocheluche. The Swiss National Health people got involved and sent a warning to everyone in the office that they had been exposed and warned them that their vaccines were way, way out of date and to be aware that they had been exposed.

DPT vaccines are one of those that are probably not effective after the age of 20 or so, but the chances of being exposed are so slim in Western countries that we never think about being re-vaccinated. Exposure is rare, but it does happen, even in Switzerland. Hubs appears to be fine, BTW, but I'm still listening to his breathing at night while he is sleeping.

For those who travel to countries where exposure to diseases not generally found here is a possibility, it makes sense to be vaccinated.

Whooping cough is actually on the rise in CH, and not rare at all anymore. It’s made worse by the fact that most adults never get a booster and aren’t protected anymore.

Whooping cough can be very dangerous and even fatal in young children and babies too young to get the vaccine. The booster is now highly recommended for all new mothers and their family. I got mine in the last trimester of my last pregnancy three years ago

Me too. It's now part of the standard vacs offered to pregnant women in the UK.

1. We are losing "Herd immunity" because of anti-vaxxers.
2. The chance of exposure are increasing because of anti-vaxxers.

Recently they have started to screen pregnant women for measels immunity - this is when I found I am NOT immune even though I had 1 dose of single measles vaccine & 1 dose of MMR that are documented. It is possible that one of these doses was bad (I have to wait for a booster until the baby is out as measles vaccination is not recommended during pregnancy) or that I am one of those non-responders who therefore depends on herd immunity! So please vaccinate!!!

I have wondered from time to time if the anti-vaxxers are not on the right track and if the species as a whole would not benefit from less people vaccinating, sort of cull the herd to a more environmentally friendly level so to speak.

The problem then is that people who can't vaccinate (very young babies, for example) have to suffer for others' willful stupidity.

This would be ok, so long as we could ensure that only anti-vaxxers were winnowed out.

I dunno, population is increasing even where there is minimal takeup of vaccines (Pakistan, Africa etc).

As a culling mechanism it is remarkably inefficient.

In addition, there are costs incurred for the medical care of the afflicted individuals. We'd also need to just let them die, or euthanase them.

But hey, these problems are a gazillion miles away from Silicon Valley...

Which is a bit of a bugger.

The vaccination does not always "take" (right word?), nd some folk can't be vaccinated for medical reasons. So these unlucky individuals benefit from herd immunity.

Hmm! Hadn´t thought of that, we would have to get our middle ages on.

WHO warns of soaring rates of measles in Europe

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43125242

Measles confirmed on Air Canada flight from Zurich to Toronto - Air Canada flight 0879 on March 6

This was the second case in the last month.


Link: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...cials-say.html