The United States is Taking its worst year for measles in more than three decades, with more than 1,300 cases in 40 states on July 16. The cases were almost as high in 2019, putting the country State of elimination of measles At risk. Six years August, health officials were able to stop the spread. But in the midst of a growing public reaction against vaccines, many tactics used may not work now.
The elimination of measles means that there has been no continuous transmission in a country for more than 12 months. This almost happened in the 2019 epidemic, which largely affected the Orthodox Jewish population in New York and some surrounding counties. In the fall of 2018, American travelers returning from Israel were tested positive for measles. The disease quickly spread through the slightly Tères communities, especially in children, two at low vaccination rates. While the rate of vaccination of measles on the level of the state for school age was 98% compared to the previous school year, the coverage of vaccination in the schools of the epidemic was only 77%. Because measles is very contagious, a 95% vaccination rate is necessary to protect a community of the disease.
As a resident, the majority of measles cases have occurred in individuals 18 and under, Almost 86% which were known to be not vaccinated. Some of these people have developed serious complications, including pneumonia, and almost 8% have been hospitalized.
The current rise in power is fueled by an epidemic that has started in a subvacinated Mennonite community in western Texas. The cases have since distributed in other counties in Texas, in New Mexico and Oklahoma. Two children in Texas without underlying conditions and an adult in New Mexico have Diad this year as a result of measles. Not all were vaccinated.
“There are defective parallels. What we saw in New York was the result of years and years of disinformation and disinformation spread around vaccine safety,” explains Neil Vora, executive director of the prevention of pandemics of the Coalition source and preceded a medical epidemiologist to the centers for the fight against glow and forecast that helped 2019.
Application cases exhausted in New York after an effort of several months which included both a traditional public health landing and changes in local and state policy.
“You have to take the first Seriusly case, because it’s like lighting. You never know when this fire will just burst,” explains Oxiris Barbot, current president and chief executive officer of the United Hospital Fund, who was New York Health Commissioner from 2018 to 2020.
As the disease propagated, Barbot realized that the city’s health service should go to the source of the transmission, largely the orthodox Jewish schools of the affected districts. In collaboration with school administrators, they examined the vaccination files to identify non-vaccinated or subvacinated children. Following an exhibition, these children were prohibited from paying school and custody of children for 21 days, the incubation period for measles. Similar measurements have been taken in certain gracies outside the city.
“It took a long time, a lot of leg work,” said Barbot. In a school, in contagious, a child led to more than 25 infections in other students and spread outside the school. She says that the Ministry of Health was “strongly involution” to ensure that schools respected quarantine measures. “”