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THURSDAY, April 4, 2019 (HealthDay News) – The mother of a terminally ill child who was exposed to measles while she was at the hospital has harsh words for parents who do not do not vaccinate their children.
Their negligence could shorten his son's already difficult struggle to stay alive, said Rayna Souza.
The California woman shared her comments the same week when US health authorities announced that the number of measles cases this year had already exceeded the total recorded last year, with 387 cases in 15 states. Public health experts have repeatedly said that "anti-vaxxer" parents fuel this resurgence of measles infections.
"People who make irresponsible decisions for their family and their child need to really, really look at it and see how it could affect other people because I could always lose my son," she said. Fox News.
His son Jackson, age 7, was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis at 4 months of age and suffered from a hundred small tumors and some large brain tumors. He has been in and out of hospitals since childhood.
"He is terminally ill and will succumb to his illness at some point," said Souza. Fox News.
After Jackson had seizures, Souza took him to the UC Davis Medical Center on March 17. A few days later, the doctors told him that Jackson had been exposed to measles during his stay at the hospital.
Jackson had to be quarantined at the hospital for several days. Tuesday was his first day at home.
"When I discovered this, I felt mortified, my son is already terminally ill," Souza said. "I have no place to risk anything with him because I'm just walking around him with a plastic bubble, I'm just trying to keep him here as long as I can."
She said the doctors told her that Jackson had been exposed to measles by another child whose parents had not vaccinated him; she had caught the disease abroad.
"Jackson was in the emergency room where this other patient was seen," said Dr. Dean Blumberg, pediatric infectious disease manager at UC Davis Health. Fox News. "There was less than an hour of separation between them so there was potentially the measles virus in the air."
Blumberg said that he did not believe Jackson had measles, but Souza said he saw all the symptoms of the disease in his son.
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