Mayor of New York City announces end of public health emergency related to measles

Mayor of New York City announces end of public health emergency related to measles

By
Gary Joad

September 16, 2019

Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city's health officials announced the end of the public health emergency declared April 9 for the largest outbreak of measles in the city for almost 30 years. With the passage of two incubation periods totaling 42 days without any new cases being verified, emergency measures to deal with the eruption of 654 cases since the beginning of the year. 39, epidemic in October 2018 were canceled.

During the nine-month period, 52 people were hospitalized and 16 were placed in intensive care units. Eighty per cent of those who contracted measles were children. Of all those infected, 73% were unvaccinated, 7% incompletely vaccinated and 15% unaware of their immunization status.

Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, signed a law repealing the personal and philosophical philosophical exemptions regarding the mandatory receipt of measles against rubella and rubella vaccine as well as other vaccines for school children. Medical exemptions for inability to receive vaccines have been maintained, as is the case in all states.

The majority of cases in New York, 72%, occurred in the Williamsburg and Borough Park neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Rockland County, where ultra-Orthodox Jews refused vaccination for themselves and their children.

When de Blasio declared the emergency in April, parents and officials of yeshivas and schools were informed that they only had to admit students and vaccinated children, receive quotes and fines or be closed for the duration of the emergency.

New York City has deployed 500 people and spent some $ 6 million administering 15,541 doses of measles vaccine and distributing tens of thousands of brochures, posters, flyers, and SMS. , automated calls, television and radio announcements and holding open discussion sessions, partly to combat anti-vaccine propaganda, until the epidemic be arrested late this summer. The infection had spread to the five boroughs.

Health Commissioner Dr Oxiris Barbot said: "Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world. There may be no more local transmission of measles in New York, but the threat remains in view of other epidemics in the United States and around the world. Our best defense against a new transmission is to have a well-immunized city. "

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of September 5, 1,234 cases of measles were reported in the United States this year, a record that has not been seen since 1992, and the highest number since measles has been reported. declared to be eliminated in 2000. New York cases accounted for three-quarters of total measles infections in the country up to 2019.

Dr. Aaron Glatt, head of infectious diseases at South Nassau Hospital on Long Island and hospital epidemiologist, told Kaiser Health News (KHN): "Immunization is of paramount importance, I do not can not overemphasize this fact. "

Dr. Glatt is a rabbi and told KHN: "Measles is not a religious problem. I do not think any religion opposes vaccines from a religious point of view. "

However, in the state of New York for the 2017-2018 school year, 26,217 vaccine exemptions were granted to students in public, private and religious schools, according to the health department of the University of New York. ;State.

The measles virus can survive for hours on dry surfaces and in the air, and it is estimated that 90% of unvaccinated people exposed to the virus will be infected. In unimmunized populations, a person infected with measles will infect 12 to 16 others, compared to 1 person infected with the influenza virus.

Serious complications include death, mostly in young people, of 1-3 people out of 1,000, often from pneumonia secondary to measles and respiratory failure. One in 1,000 people will develop brain swelling and viral encephalitis, with the risk of impaired intellectual function, convulsions and / or deafness.

Prior to the availability of measles vaccines in the United States in 1963, there were approximately 4 million cases per year, resulting in some 400 to 500 deaths.

Collective immunity means that a sufficient majority of the population is immune to an infectious disease, so that the infecting agent does not have the opportunity to survive and spread, thus providing protection to the unvaccinated minority Population. The minority would include either immunodeficient persons, or oppressed people, those who can not receive vaccine because of a pre-existing condition such as cancer or any other medical contraindication to vaccination.

For measles prevention, health authorities recommend that vaccines be administered as fully as possible. The immunity of the herd against measles is effective between 92 and 96%. In 2017, vaccination coverage in the United States for people aged 19 to 35 months was 92.7%, according to the CDC. However, 11 states were known to be less than 90%.

Two doses of MMR vaccine are recommended, the first between 12 and 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years. The vaccine is 97% effective.

After Governor Cuomo signed the Vaccine Exemption, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and another civil rights lawyer, Michael Sussman, filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the US state of California. New York on behalf of 55 families refusing the vaccine their children. A judge ruled against the plaintiffs and the case is on appeal.

the Washington Post has published articles and photos of anti-vaccine activists targeting neighborhoods affected by the measles outbreak this year with anti-vaccine rallies, urging unvaccinated residents and parents to ignore calls made by health authorities to accept preventive measures. One of the rally speakers in June, Del Bigtree, was reported by the To post have called measles a "banal disease".

the To post also published an article on June 19 identifying a Manhattan hedge fund manager and his wife, Bernard and Lisa Selz, who donated millions of dollars to anti-vaccine campaigns across the United States. The couple refused to discuss their activities and donations with the To post. The couple's charity's income tax returns reveal that he donated $ 200,000 to a legal fund for disgraced and defrocked former British doctor Andrew Wakefield.

Dr. Barbot, New York Health Commissioner, told the To post that she had not heard of the Selzes: "But I know that science is clear and that the science is clear: MMR vaccine prevents measles. Any suggestion to the contrary threatens the health and well-being of New Yorkers. "

In 1998, Wakefield had written fraudulent claims that the ROR had caused autism and colitis in a dozen children, reported in an article published in the Lancet medical journal. Then, the editors of the newspaper, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and the London Sunday Times determined that Wakefield had falsified the published findings for the children. the Lancet then published a complete retraction of the article's claims, saying that Wakefield had lied to his publishers about his data.

The majority of its co-authors then dissociated themselves from this completely discredited publication.

Several studies since have completely refuted Wakefield's claims about immunization links with autism, the latest Danish publication published this spring on 657,461 children born between 1999 and 2010 without any evidence of autism after the MMR administration.

Lancet, the BMJ and the Times also determined that Wakefield had an undeclared conflict of interest in his attempt to destroy public confidence in the use of the measles mumps and rubella vaccine.

It was discovered that he had filed a patent application for an autism test kit prior to the fraudulent claims of the 1998 medical journal and for a stand-alone measles vaccine, which he hoped would have gained dozens of millions of dollars.

The British General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates the licensing of healthcare professionals in the UK, concluded that he had performed his duties "dishonestly and irresponsibly". The GMC subsequently revoked his authorization to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.

A Wikipedia article on Wakefield presents his picture at an anti-vaccine rally in April in Poland.

<! – blog comments powered by Disqus ->