Not only measles, vaccine-preventable diseases are present throughout the United States.

Within minutes, the nurses helped me place intravenous lines and infuse multiple antibiotics. His mother looked incredulously out of the corner, not completely recording everything that was happening, despite our best efforts to explain.

We then took the baby to the intensive care unit. Antibiotics were not enough and she finally had to undergo brain surgery to clear the infection before recovering completely.

His diagnosis: meningitis hemophilus influenzae type B, a disease preventable by vaccination caused by a bacterium. Her parents had chosen to be vaccinated, but she was so young that she had not received the full set of vaccines.

I am worried about measles. Haemophilus influenzae type B m worries. More and more parents fearing vaccines will leave their children vulnerable to these diseases. And we have more to worry about.

Pertussis who broke the blood vessels in his eyes

Dr. Louis Bell, chief of the general pediatrics division of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, remembers distinctly a girl in whom he had been diagnosed with pertussis, a vaccine-preventable disease caused by by a bacterium called Bordetella pertussis.

"She was coughing so hard and so intense that she broke the small blood vessels in her eyelids and bleeding into the whites of her eyes," he said. After a stay in the hospital, his school-aged patient finally recovered completely.

For adults and older children, pertussis can often be treated at home with antibiotic therapy, with acute cough being the most troublesome symptom.

The real danger, Bell explains, is when pertussis affects children under 6 months old.

When young children get whooping cough, they may have a cough during which their oxygen level decreases. If it's serious enough, it can cause convulsions, Bell explained.

It is not uncommon for infants to spend several weeks in the hospital while their breathing stabilizes and they find the ability to feed themselves.

Infants start the vaccine series at 2 months of age and receive additional doses at 4 and 6 months of age. The CDC also encourages pregnant women who have not been vaccinated to do so during their pregnancy.

Everyone around young babies needs to make sure they have been vaccinated, Bell said.

Mumps arrives on campus

This week, 16 cases of mumps – yet another vaccine-preventable disease – have been diagnosed at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Mumps outbreaks usually occur in people in close contact, for example on university campuses and among sports teams. The disease usually causes swollen and painful salivary glands under the ears, as well as fever, fatigue, loss of appetite and other viral symptoms.

The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella. One dose of the vaccine is 78% effective in preventing mumps, and two doses are 88% effective. The vaccination status of the students and whether they have received the recommended booster is not known at this time.

Tetanus led to eight weeks of hospitalization and hospitalization costs of $ 800,000

In 2017, a 6 year old boy went to play at his family's farm in Oregon. He fell and cut his forehead, which his family cleaned and sewed at home. Six days later, he began to tighten his jaw and feel spasms in his arms, soon followed by breathing difficulties.

Tetanus is a disease of the nerves and muscles caused by Clostridium tetani bacteria. According to the CDC, bacterial spores in the soil can enter the body when the skin barrier is disrupted. The CDC recommends a series of vaccinations against tetanus from 2 months. The agency also recommends adult boosters every 10 years.

Eight weeks, many medical procedures and $ 811,929 in hospital charges later, the boy's parents refused the second recommended dose of the tetanus vaccine. After intensive rehabilitation, he is well and resumed normal activities, according to the report.

Thousands of deaths from influenza each year

In addition, almost a million people a season can be hospitalized because of the flu.

"I just took care of a child under 2 who was not vaccinated against the flu and who was suffering from very serious secondary bacterial pneumonia," Bell said.

Influenza, which is caused by a virus, can predispose children and adults to developing complications such as bacterial pneumonia, he said. His patient had pus in the lungs and necrosis, or death of lung tissue.

"I think that if he had been vaccinated, he could have caught the flu, but he probably would not have contracted secondary pneumonia," said Bell, referring to the lowest known rate of flu-like complications at home. vaccinated persons who still contract the virus. disease.

Chickenpox: The disease of blister and itching that has not dissipated

Initially, a single dose of the vaccine was recommended to children. But when experts realized that a small percentage of children had not developed solid immunity at this first dose, two doses are currently recommended: one to one year and one second to about four years. The two-dose vaccination program resulted in a reduction in the number of patients. epidemics, according to the CDC.

Bell remembers the time when chickenpox was so common that children were frequently admitted to the hospital with a complication called acute cerebellar ataxia. It is then that the cerebellum – the part of the brain responsible for coordination and balance – can become inflamed after an infection.

"It's a dizziness so intense that they can not walk or stand up, and that they're nauseated," Bell explained.

"We, the health professionals and the designers of these vaccines, have been so successful that we now have a whole generation of parents who do not remember," said Bell.

But there are those who remember, who have seen these cases. And we are worried.