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| Diseases from the 19th and 20th centuries that were thought to be largely eradicated are making a comeback. CLARO DE LUNA, CC by 2.0 |
An infectious childhood disease thought to be largely eradicated and consigned to history has reemerged in parts of Asia and the United Kingdom. The number of people in England being treated for scarlet fever, a bacterial infection that had largely disappeared over the past 100 years, has increased by 136 percent in the last five years, according to the National Health Service (NHS).
Scarlet fever is one of the many “Victorian era” diseases making a resurgence in the 21st century. There has also been a 300 percent increase in cholera cases, and a 38 percent uptick in scurvy. There has been an increase in measles and whooping cough as well during the last several years.
"There has been a huge rise in scarlet fever — 14,000 [suspected] cases in the last year, the highest since the 1960s," said Dr. Nuria Martinez-Alier, an immunologist in London, according to CNN. "We have seen a rise in the cases of tuberculosis, we've seen a rise in cases of whooping cough, we have seen more measles in the last 10 years than in the last 10 years before that."
The reemergence of these diseases have been partially blamed on increased poverty and malnutrition in the country, and cuts to social services, UPI reported. Although many of these diseases are treatable, poverty and lack of access to health care can fuel the spread of infectious diseases. Tuberculosis (TB), a potentially deadly disease strongly associated with poverty, was named the top infectious global killer this year by the World Health Organization, surpassing HIV and AIDS. In 2014, nearly 10 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died from the disease.
Although TB rates have gone down in recent years, they are still surprisingly high. Countries like Rwanda, Iraq, and Guatemala have higher incidence rates of the infection.
Martinez-Alier said she believes lower vaccination rates, poverty, and malnutrition are contributing to the resurgence of these Victorian-era diseases.
"We are seeing a reduced vaccine uptake, for example with measles. [We have] reduced population immunity, for example with whooping cough; [and] increased poverty and more people on the poverty line," all contribute to the problem. In the United States, outbreaks of measles and whooping cough were also blamed on reduced vaccination and herd immunity,” Martinez-Alier said.
In the United States, recent outbreaks of measles and the whooping cough were also "blamed on reduced vaccination and herd immunity," UPI reported.
Some experts have cited poverty and malnutrition, which has risen 51 percent in England over the past five years, as part of the reason for this resurgence in these diseases.
"We meet families from across the UK struggling to put enough food on the table and, at the extreme end, you get people who are malnourished," Chris Mould, Chairman of the the Trussell Trust, a company that runs a network of foodbanks across the United Kingdom, told The Independent. "We often see parents who are going without food so that they can feed their children, and these parents often struggle to afford enough nutritious food for their children, too. We don’t think anyone should have to go hungry in the UK, which is why we’re working to engage the public, other charities and politicians across parties to find solutions to the underlying causes of food poverty."
People living in poverty and suffering from undernourishment are most vulnerable to these diseases.
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