Vaccine scare threatens health in Ukraine

[trotsky]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJnoCvLEOV9fG5CkDnfhJmwqGOmgD9750RGO0

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A widespread scare about vaccine side effects in Ukraine has led to a sharp drop in immunizations that could result in disease outbreaks spreading beyond the former Soviet republic, international and local health officials say.

Hundreds of thousands of fearful Ukrainians have refused vaccines for diseases such as diphtheria, mumps, polio, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, whooping cough and others this year, according to official estimates. Authorities have canceled a U.N.-backed measles and rubella vaccination campaign funded by U.S. philanthropist Ted Turner, and will have to collect and incinerate nearly 9 million unused doses in coming months.

Sounds like Ukraine has a similar dynamic feeding the anti-vaccination fears as we do in the USA:

Ukraine has an educated population but rumors and misperceptions spread easily. Constant political turmoil and a devastating financial crisis — one of the worst in Europe — has fueled mistrust of Ukraine's crumbling health care system, and authorities in general.

And here we have your average Ukrainian parent echoing the same falsehoods the US anti-vax movement spreads:

Nina Zaichenko, a 25-year-old interior designer in Kiev, says she has decided not to immunize her 1-year-old daughter, Dasha, against any diseases until at least the age of 3. She fears the infant's body is still to weak to handle vaccinations and she does not trust the local health system to acquire and properly store high-quality vaccines. "The chances of a child getting sick from a vaccine and from the disease itself are equal," Zaichenko said, an assertion experts say has no basis in the truth. "It's a hard choice for parents to make."