Fine— I’ll say it aloud—Ukraine had a 60% positivity for #COVID19 in mid February, and just before the invasion on Feb. 24, only 35% of Ukrainians were vaccinated. It just makes me sad & worried, that’s all.
📍“War is an infectious disease’s best friend”. time.com/6153254/ukrain…
📍“War is an infectious disease’s best friend”. time.com/6153254/ukrain…
2) Ukraine’s relatively low vaccination rate could have implications for how large additional surges of cases, both in the country and in the region become as a result of the war.
3) Like many other countries, Ukraine experienced a surge in cases due to the Omicron variant in November and another peak in the first week of February—most likely due to its low level of vaccination.
4) “It challenges every public health program you can have. It limits the medical care available, and often fosters transmission when so many people are crowded into bomb shelter locations & on trains. This is going to be the perfect storm of one serious challenge after another.”
5) World Health Organization researchers found that 65% of major infectious disease outbreaks occurring in the 1990s were among refugee populations or in conflict zones. conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
6)“It turns out when you are under stress, your immune system does not work as well. You are not eating as well, and you cannot fight disease as well,” he says.
7) “And in times of conflict, you move around a lot, and end up in bomb shelters or basements or on trucks that are way more crowded than normal and have bad air circulation. I don’t think people fully understand how war is like the breeding ground of disease.”
8) Don’t hate—- I loved this little Ukrainian girl singing “Let it Go” from Frozen. But the super dense bomb shelter where everyone is living is also very worrisome to me as an epidemiologist. I just worry. But I know 🇺🇦 has a war to survive too.
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