Red Measles Redux
Rubeola, a.k.a. red measles, has been targeted for eradication by the WHO but that goal has proved elusive. My first opinion blog. “Science vs. Truth” discussed some of the reasons why.
A recent CDC bulletin shows the good news and the bad about this ancient scourge. An athletic competition in Pennsylvania drew 265,000 participants and spectators from eight foreign countries and all parts of the USA. A 12-year-old Japanese boy was incubating measles when he arrived in PA after several changes of planes. His team and the Taiwanese shared transportation.
The good news: only six more cases of measles could be documented after intense search by a team of epidemiologists. The attack rate for measles in a non-immune population would be over 90%. The bad news? It’s still around, and the victims were very sick. A 40-year-old sales rep developed a 105.7 F fever and seizures after contact with the index case, by which time he was home in Texas. A 53-year-old woman from Michigan got typical measles, which she had not had as a child, after sitting near the index case while flying into Detroit. (People born before 1957 are assumed to be immune). All recovered.
I took my new puppy Gucci to the vet yesterday (many of you have met her as she spends most days in the office) and we discussed vaccination. Distemper in dogs is caused by the same virus as human measles, and many younger vets think it’s no longer a threat because they’ve never seen it. Last year he saw an outbreak of 29 cases, all devastating.
Smallpox is gone except in laboratories, polio is almost gone, but measles and the other childhood diseases are lurking, and only continued efforts to vaccinate all children will save us from more surprises. In this age of international travel, that must include kids from all over the world. Despite a few loose cannons on the Internet, we are making progress.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Since posting the above, I have learned that CDC was called in to the San Diego area to investigate another measles outbreak. As is true with most American cases, the first was imported by a 7-year-old boy returning from out of the country. Including him, eleven cases have been found, all in unvaccinated children. Four were transmitted in the office of his pediatrician. Almost ten percent of the children in the local school district are unvaccinated because of personal belief exemptions. Even in the face of this outbreak, many of the parents of exposed children chose a 21-day quarantine rather than the vaccine.