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Another measles epidemic is endangering children, that of the state of Washington. Of the 37 people already infected by this outbreak, at least 32 were not vaccinated against measles and 35 were under 18 years old. Experts say the outbreak was easy enough to predict and could have been avoided if more children in the area were vaccinated. The situation raises the question: how many children will get sick before vaccination rates rise?
Measles has spread all over the world, and outbreaks in the United States have occurred in New York, New Jersey, and now in Washington State. Last year, 349 people were infected with measles, making it the second worst year since 2000, when health authorities determined that the disease had been eliminated in the United States. The safe and effective measles vaccine can prevent this deadly infection, but not all states have plugged the loopholes that allow parents to provide their children with immunization for non-medical reasons.
In Clark County, Washington State, where at least 25 children under the age of 10 are affected by measles, nearly 8% of children entering kindergarten in 2017 have skipped the required vaccines, according to the report. . the Washington Post. This is worrying because the virus is particularly dangerous for children. It is well known for its rashes and fever, but it can also cause pneumonia, brain damage and death. And it's incredibly contagious, according to the CDC. Being in the same room as someone who has measles – even two hours after leaving – can put you in danger if you are not vaccinated.
That's why the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is so important; People who are too young or too sick to be vaccinated rely on their surroundings to stay healthy. "Once the measles outbreak has begun, it is infants under 12 months of age who are not yet old enough to receive their measles vaccine," said Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School. of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "A parent from Clark County, Washington – they must live in fear of going out with their baby into Walmart or the public library."
All 50 US states require that children be vaccinated before starting school, but there are loopholes that allow them to not be vaccinated. There are medical exemptions for children who can not be vaccinated for health reasons and religious exemptions for children whose religion forbids it. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 17 states allow parents to avoid vaccinations for their children because of their personal beliefs. The state of Washington is one of them, for the moment. According to King 5 News, as the number of measles cases increases, a new bill could change that – at least for the MMR vaccine.
We have seen state legislatures change their tone and tighten these loopholes after many epidemics in the past. In late 2014 and early 2015, 147 people were infected with measles during an outbreak related to Disneyland California. Most of them were not vaccinated, according to the CDC. In response, California pbaded a law canceling non-medical immunization exemptions, making it one of only three states to do so, with Mississippi and West Virginia.
Leila Barraza, an badistant professor at the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, is a case study of the kind of change that can happen after a major epidemic. "In public health, we never want more epidemics," she says. But the epidemics can quick efforts to change policies, wrote Barazza at the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 2015. After the Disneyland outbreaks, the country's lawmakers worked to amend the vaccine laws and some were successful – such as California and Vermont, which removed the philosophical exemption on state vaccines. "Whenever you have an epidemic as serious as this, vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases are at the forefront of everyone's concern," she says.
But epidemics are a hefty price to pay for change, especially because the consequences of hesitancy about vaccines are so obvious, Hotez says. "It's so frustrating because you can see it coming down the slopes."
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