An Antivax hotspot near a major US city now has a measles outbreak

A measles epidemic that is rapidly worsening around Portland, Oregon, has led health officials in Clark County, Washington, to declare a public health emergency, warning that people infected with the highly contagious virus had visited schools and churches, a dentist's office, a Costco, an Ikea and Amazon collection point.

A person with measles was on Jan. 7 at Hall D of Portland International Airport, the county public health department announced. An infected person attended a Portland Trail Blazers home game on January 11th.

At the beginning of last week, there were only a few confirmed cases. On Friday, the day of the emergency declaration, there were 19. On Sunday, this number had risen to 21.

The latest update took place on Tuesday, when county officials said they had confirmed 23 cases and investigated two more suspected cases. The vast majority of those who became ill had not been vaccinated.

The epidemic testifies to the fear of pediatric epidemiologists that a citadel of the movement against compulsory vaccination is likely to quickly spread a life-threatening disease.

"It's alarming," said Douglas J. Opel, pediatrician at the Seattle Children's Hospital, in an interview with The Washington Post.

"Whenever we face an epidemic for which we have an effective and safe vaccine, it should trigger a red flag."

State data show that 7.9% of children in Clark County have been exempted from the required vaccinations for entry into kindergarten during the 2017-2018 school year, which includes the two-dose course against measles declared effective by 97% of control centers and prevention of the disease.

Only 1.2% of children had a medical exemption, which means that around 7% had not been vaccinated for personal or religious reasons. Nationally, about 2% of children have not been vaccinated for non-medical reasons.

The high rate of non-medical exemptions for vaccines is what makes the Portland area, bordering Clark County, across the Columbia River, a "hotspot" for epidemics, according to Peter J. Hotez, professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

"It's something I've been predicting for a while now," he said about the public health emergency in Clark County. "It's really horrible and really tragic and totally avoidable."

Of the confirmed cases, 18 patients are between 1 and 10 years old.

Twenty of the infected persons had not been immunized against measles and the vaccination history of the other three had not been verified. A person was hospitalized.

Experts said the epidemic was still in its infancy. The incubation period of the virus is on average two weeks and it can spread four days before a rash appears.

Because measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, it should spread to areas with low vaccination rates, Hotez said.

He followed this effect in an article last year in the Public Library of Science, linking the number of philosophical exemptions, increasing since 2009 in 12 of the 18 states that allow it, to growing epidemics.

The problem is particularly pronounced, according to the newspaper, in more than a dozen "peak metropolitan areas", including Portland and Seattle to the northwest, Phoenix to the southwest and Detroit to the west-central.

Public health experts raise alarms about the geographic clustering of people who refuse to be vaccinated, which creates vulnerabilities despite the high overall vaccination rate.

In November, Asheville, North Carolina, another stronghold of the anti-vaccination movement, succumbed to the country's most serious outbreak of chickenpox since developing a vaccine against infection. is more than twenty years old.

"Portland is a total train accident with respect to vaccination rates," said Hotez in an interview at The post office.

The opposition to mandatory vaccination in the Pacific Northwest dates back to the progressive era and continues despite major medical advances.

The modern anti-vaccination movement – based on a covert research published in 1998 that combines the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as the MMR vaccine, with autism – is not exclusive to one side of the political divide, according to survey data; he tends to find his most fervent supporters at both extremes.

Measles is a terrible price to pay for clemency for vaccination, Hotez warned, calling the disease "one of the most serious infectious diseases known to mankind". After the eradication of smallpox in 1980, measles became the leading cause of death among children, he said.

In 2000, public health officials said that measles had been eliminated in the United States because more than a year had pbaded without continued transmission of the disease.

But recent outbreaks provide evidence of a dangerous backtracking in the containment of the virus, said Hotez, accusing the anti-vaccination movement. "It's a self-inflicted injury," he said.

In 2015, a woman from northwestern Washington died of pneumonia after contracting measles. It was the first death in the United States of the virus since 2003.

Last year saw the second highest number of measles cases reported since 2000, according to the CDC. A total of 349 cases were confirmed in 26 states and in the District of Columbia, only 667 in 2014 exceeded them.

Orthodox Jewish communities have been at the center of several epidemics last year in New York and New Jersey, after the return of unvaccinated travelers with the Israeli virus, which was fighting an epidemic.

The year before, Minnesota had reported 75 cases of measles, mostly in a Somali community where the discredited theory of MMR vaccine autism had been installed.

Because measles is still endemic in some parts of the world, Opel said, "periodic introductions by people on trips are the cause of frequent epidemics here."

A high level of protection is needed to prevent the transfer of the highly contagious virus, he added. Somewhere between 92 and 94% of the population needs to be vaccinated.

Clark County is already below this level, he observed, "before you take into account other elements, such as people who do not show up for their appointments".

The county health department pointed to the ease with which the virus can spread, staying up to two hours in the air of a room where an infected person was found.

"If other people breathe contaminated air or touch a contaminated surface, then touch their eyes, nose or mouth, they can infect," warned the country in a statement on Tuesday. .

"Measles is so contagious that if someone is infected, 90% of those close to that person who are not immune will also be infected."

While the illness often begins with cold and rash-like symptoms, the doctors pointed out that many infected people had additional complications, including pneumonia and, in more severe cases, brain inflammation called encephalitis. even convulsions.

"It's not a benign disease," Opel said.

2018 © The Washington Post

This article was originally published by The Washington Post.