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Cases in Washington Measles Outbreak Continue to RiseKashmira Gander3 hrs agoClark County Public Health said in a statement Sunday that 34 cases have been confirmed, with a further nine suspected.The latest cases come after the county declared the spike in incidences of the highly contagious disease amounted to a public health emergency on January 18. The measure is designed to ensure the body has the resources to tackle the outbreak. By January 25, Governor Jan Inseel had declared a state of emergency.Of the total cases, 24 were in children under the age of 10; nine involved those aged between 11 to 18; and one related to an individual aged between 19 to 29 years. One individual was hospitalized. 30 of the patients had not been vaccinated against the disease. It was as yet unclear if the remaining four had received their shots.The health body urged anyone who has been exposed to measles and believes they have experienced its symptoms to “call their health care provider prior to visiting the medical office to make a plan that avoids exposing others in the waiting room.”“People who believe they have symptoms of measles should not go directly to medical offices, urgent care centers or emergency departments (unless experiencing a medical emergency) without calling in advance.”“Anyone with questions about measles immunity or the measles vaccine should contact their primary care provider. Clark County Public Health does not provide immunizations or testing for immunity,” the body stated.It also released a list of locations and times on its website—including hospitals, schools, and churches—where individuals may have been exposed to the virus.Those with concerns about the investigation or public exposures are invited to use the dedicated line set up by Clark County Public Health: 360.397.8021.Clark County Public Health Director Dr. Alan Melnick suggested the outbreak was linked to the spread of false claims online relating to the safety of vaccines and the severity of measles. He told KomoNews.com: “I think that misinformation is doing a disservice and it’s dangerous.”Melnick hit back at the myth that measles is a harmless condition which individuals don’t need to be protected against.“Before the vaccine became available in the '60s and we started mass vaccination, 400 to 500 people in the U.S. died every year,” he said.At the time the state of emergency was declared, Inslee stated: “measles is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children.”He described the number of cases as an “an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.”Caused by a virus, measles is spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes and the virus enters another individual’s eyes, nose or mouth.The disease can remain in the air for as long as two hours, and is so contagious that 90 percent of people near an infected person who haven’t got an immune defense (generally because they haven't been vaccinated) will be infected.A carrier can pass on measles before they show the symptoms themselves. These can take between one to three weeks to appear.The illness generally first causes a high fever, red eyes, a cough and a runny nose. A rash will then form on the skin, spreading from the head across the body. A sufferer can be contagious for four days either side of the rash hitting.Clark County Public Health warned that while measles can be serious in all patients, it is particular dangerous for children below the age of five and adults aged 20 and above. Complications can include ear infections, pneumonia and diarrhea."As many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children," the organization warned. "About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability. Measles may cause pregnant women to give birth prematurely or to have a low-birth-weight baby.”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed earlier this month that 349 cases of measles were confirmed across 26 states and the District of Columbia in 2018: the second highest number since the disease was eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. The cases were documented across 17 outbreaks around the country. The agency blamed the “further spread of measles in U.S. communities with pockets of unvaccinated people” and “an increase in the number of travelers who get measles abroad and bring it into the U.S.”Measles can be prevented by the MMR shot, which also protects against mumps and rubella. It is "very safe and effective," the CDC states.Children should receive two shots of the vaccine, with the first between 12 to 15 months, with the second when they are 4 or 6 years old. "Teens and adults should also be up to date on their MMR vaccination," it said.
Measles Cases Reported at O'Hare and Newark Airports. Should You Worry?By Kate Sheridan On 1/16/18 at 11:05 AMAirports can be awful places. There's the constant barrage of 24-hour news channels, the generally unsatisfying and overpriced food and the pressure to get your shoes off and into a security bin as fast as possible.Now, there's also the measles. O'Hare in Chicago and Newark Liberty International airports have both reported passengers who may have spread measles to other passengers in the airports. An Indiana University student who was at Newark on January 2 has been identified as the source of that potential exposure; the New Jersey Department of Health noted in a press release that people who were at the airport between 6:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. may be at risk. According to ABC News, the traveler was a woman who was arriving on a flight from Mumbai. The traveler at O'Hare also arrived in the international terminal on Wednesday morning before departing later that day on a domestic flight, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Measles can take time to develop; people who have been exposed at one of these airports may not show symptoms for up to three weeks, the departments of health noted. There's a reason that we don't usually get notifications about people who have walked through airports while sick with the flu, for example; measles is very contagious and can be dangerous. In addition to creating generally miserable symptoms, including a fever, cough and red and watery eyes, measles can also cause serious complications—especially in young children and adults, according to the CDC. In rare cases, a child's brain can swell to the point that their cognitive abilities and hearing can be permanently affected. If a woman catches measles while she is pregnant, she can miscarry or give birth prematurely.Technically speaking, measles has been eliminated in the United States since 2000. But that just means that there's not been measles spreading from person to person within the country for a year; travelers do continue to bring the disease back into the country. For example, two people arriving home from the Philippines brought measles to their Amish community in Ohio, sparking an outbreak large enough to warrant a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine.As was the case in this Amish community, people in the United States who get measles often haven't been vaccinated. Though the vast majority of Americans are up to date on their vaccines, some health care professionals are worried that the proportion may not be high enough in some areas to provide herd immunity, created when so many people in an area have been vaccinated that the disease can't easily spread from person to person. Epidemiologists blamed a lack of herd immunity for the measles outbreak at Disneyland, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2015. About 92 percent of American children are vaccinated against the measles by their 3rd birthday. Newark and O'Hare both made MIT scientists' 2012 list of the top 10 airports for spreading infectious diseases based on a number of factors, including travel patterns and the amount of time people wait around, according to CNN.
Measles Eradicated From the AmericasBy Sandy Ong On 9/28/16 at 11:01 AM ublic-health officials capped a 22-year-effort with the announcement Tuesday that they had eradicated measles from the Americas, even as it remains a leading cause of death among children in other parts of the world.Officials said it was a remarkable achievement, noting that the Americas cover 55 countries and territories over a vast geographic area and are home to roughly 1 billion people—or 13.5 percent of the world’s total population. World Health Organization officials attribute the region’s measles-free status to strict vaccination programs, strong political commitment and good communication throughout the Americas.“This is a historic day for our region and indeed the world,” said Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the WHO. “It is proof of the remarkable success that can be achieved when countries work together in solidarity towards a common goal.”Measles is the fifth vaccine-preventable disease to be eliminated from the Americas. Rubella (or german measles) and congenital rubella syndrome (or CRS) were banished last year, while smallpox and polio were removed in 1971 and 1994 respectively.“Today’s declaration is a very important and significant step towards the ultimate goal of global measles eradication,” says William Moss, a pediatric infectious disease specialist from John Hopkins University, who also works with the WHO. But he cautions that being declared disease-free doesn’t mean that measles will never surface again in the Americas.“As long as there’s the measles virus circulating elsewhere in the world, there will be cases in the Americas,” Moss says. That’s because the interconnectedness of our world today and global air travel means that measles can always be imported from other regions, where the disease is still very much a problem.Related Stories Rates of Measles Vaccination Lag Behind Worldwide Measles Could Kill More Than Ebola in West Africa, Says ReportThe effort to eradicate measles in the Americas began in 1994. To be declared measles-free, a country must have no cases originating within its borders for at least 12 continuous months. The region’s last known endemic case occurred in Venezuela in 2002.Measles is transmitted through the air and by direct contact. Nearly 115,000 deaths from measles were recorded in 2014, mostly in children younger than five. Those who fall ill normally first experience a high fever, followed by a runny nose, red and watery eyes, and small white spots inside the mouth. Rashes—a classic sign of measles—break out all over the body soon after.Vaccines for the disease first became available in 1963, but mass vaccination began only in the 1980s. Figures from the WHO indicate that vaccination has helped prevent an estimated 17.1 million deaths between 2000 and 2014. Many countries, including the U.S., include a two-dose measles vaccine in their routine childhood immunization schedule. 2014 figures from the National Immunization Survey suggest that 91.5 percent of all infants aged 19 to 35 months in the U.S. had received at least one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The group of medics put their names to a letter in the Lancet yesterday calling for “high-level political, financial, and technical support to address the Ebola outbreak that started last May” in the Congo.The current outbreak – first declared just six months ago – is already the world’s second-biggest having killed nearly 1,000 since it began.And now there are fresh fears the epidemic is set to intensify amid warnings the spread is taking the disease closer to Goma city and has already arrived in the city of Butemba, which is home to millions of people.The United Nations has scrambled emergency medical teams in Goma to deal with a possibly devastating outbreak in the city, with 2,000 emergency workers stationed there ready to deal with patients.But doctors fear that if Ebola does reach the city, it will be impossible to stop as many infected people won’t even seek medical treatment.Shocking reports have emerged of residents attacking emergency workers, who they have accused of orchestrating the epidemic.Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontiers) released an account of one woman, Aline Kahindo, who said it is widely believed that Ebola patients who visit hospitals are immediately put into body bags.Other rumours include medical staff stealing people’s organs to be sold on the black market.Laurence Sailly, the Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator in the Congolese city Beni, said: “In this situation people might have no other choice than to seek medical help in health facilities that do not have adequate triage or infection prevention and control measures in place, which makes the risk of contamination higher.“We are talking about a population that has endured many years of conflict. On top of that, they are now faced with the deadliest Ebola outbreak the country has ever seen.“The unrest … adds even more to their plight by limiting their chances of finding adequate medical care.”Emmanuel Massart, the Doctors Without Borders project coordinator in Katwa, added: “With more and more cases coming from the city of Butembo, which has a population of almost a million people, it was necessary to set up a second treatment centre very rapidly.“Large windows allow our patients to see the faces of the doctors and nurses treating them and make family visits easier, reestablishing some of the human contact that is so hard to maintain in Ebola treatment centres.”
