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Measles surveillance in workplaces in the United States needs to be improved, especially in the health care sector, said an expert on occupational safety.
Measles cases reached their highest level in 27 years in the United States. To help prevent transmission, officials need to monitor more closely how and where cases are spreading, Christopher Brown, health scientist in Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Department of Labor's United States (OSHA). , written in a letter published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
"Good surveillance of the disease. . . is essential to enable effective interventions that reduce or prevent the spread of the disease and keep people healthy, "Brown told Reuters Health by e-mail, noting that he had written the research letter by personal interest and not as an official member of OSHA.
"Work-related infections were commonplace and could have been prevented, especially among health care workers," writes Brown, Brown wrote in past measles outbreaks.
For example, about 2% of the 1,300 US non-imported cases registered between 2001 and 2014 were related to occupational exposures among health care workers. Between 1998 and 2010, health workers accounted for about 23% of the cases badociated with 31 different households worldwide. This includes three outbreaks in the United States.
The CDC's National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System monitors the spread of epidemics, but the numbers do not usually include details of occupational exposures, Brown said.
Local health departments and states should try to communicate this information, and the CDC should in turn make this information publicly available so that researchers can track exposures and patterns of infection, he declares. This type of surveillance is done for high-risk diseases such as the Ebola virus, but not for outbreaks that are not considered "new or clinically severe," Brown said.
"For people who work in an environment where they run an increased risk of being exposed to measles, it is important for them to make sure that they have the recommended number of doses of vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), "said Amy. Parker Fiebelkorn of the CDC's Vaccine Working Group, who was not involved in the letter.
"For adults who work in the health sector, international travelers and students from post-secondary institutions, it is recommended to use two doses of MMR," she said. told Reuters Health by email. "For all other adults, a dose of MMR is sufficient. MMR vaccination is the best prevention against measles. "
Since the beginning of this year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded more than 1,100 cases of measles, an increase of 300% over 2018, writes Brown in the letter.
Some of the cases have caused epidemics in the state of New York, California, Pennsylvania and Washington.
"Large outbreaks of measles are currently occurring around the world and in this mobile world they can be imported into the United States, which becomes contagious among the pockets of unvaccinated people," said Dr. Jennifer Rosen of the Department of health of New York City. Mental hygiene, which has not been involved in the letter.
"The first case of the outbreak in New York was an unvaccinated child who had contracted measles while traveling abroad, which led to several other cases," he said. she told Reuters Health by phone. "Vaccination is the best way to protect yourself against measles."
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