Doctors battle measles and conspiracy theories

Skiers had a surprise at an upmarket French resort this week: doctors with needles to vaccinate them against measles.

A nurse administers a measles vaccine to a teenager in a Ukrainian school this week. Picture: Yuri Dyachyshyn/AFP

Skiers had a surprise when they returned from the pistes to their hotels in an upmarket French resort this week: doctors armed with needles to vaccinate them against measles.

The operation was an attempt to eradicate an outbreak in Val Thorens, the latest battleground in a confrontation between health authorities struggling against a disease for which there is no treatment and campaigners spreading conspiracy theories that vaccinations serve only to boost pharmaceutical industry profits.

On Friday France was included on a list of countries blamed by UNICEF for measles cases “surging to alarmingly high levels” around the world.

Most, like Yemen, the Philippines and Sudan, were cited because of “poor health infrastructure, civil strife and low community awareness”. France is different. It has the world’s sixth-biggest economy and a healthcare system among the best in Europe.

There were 2902 cases of measles reported in France last year, a huge rise from 633 in 2017. Officials say that this is no surprise, given that vaccination levels have dropped to 79 per cent. The World Health Organisation recommends a rate of at least 95 per cent.

Henrietta Fore, Unicef’s executive director, said: “Measles may be the disease but all too often, the real infection is misinformation.”

Conspiracy theories have been promoted by populists across the Western world but are particularly well entrenched in France, largely because swathes of voters are highly distrustful of their politicians.

A recent poll found that 43 per cent of the French public believed the government hid the truth about the ill effects of vaccinations. Among members of the anti-establishment yellow-vest movement, which has its roots in provincial working class towns, the proportion was 62 per cent.

“I always have patients saying that they are afraid vaccinations will lead to autism or multiple sclerosis and things like that,” Alexis Raboteau, a GP in Val Thorens, said.

“I try to explain to them that that is not the case, but people are so fed up with our politicians that it is difficult to convince them.”

Jean-Pierre Eudier, chairman of one of the country’s most vociferous anti-vaccine groups, the National League for the Liberty of Vaccinations, says vaccination programs are promoted by “supranational” bodies funded by the likes of Bill Gates and “infiltrated” by pharmaceutical industry lobbyists.

Jean-Baptiste Boisseau, 32, a web designer, disagrees. “It makes me mad to hear that sort of thing,” he said.

His parents forgot to have him vaccinated when he was a child and he caught measles in 2010. He spent six months in a wheelchair and it took him four years to learn to walk normally again.

In Val Thorens, the outbreak seems to have begun among seasonal workers, who are mostly young, French and unvaccinated.

Dr Raboteau said: “The only way to stop measles is through vaccinations, and as holiday-makers don’t want to come to the surgery, we’re having to go to their hotels.”

The Times