Measle Vaccination Paper

Audience hook: In 2014, the U.S experienced a record number of cases of measles, mostly from the Philippines. Most were unvaccinated and most were from international travel.

Imagine traveling to the “Happiest Place on Earth”, Disneyland, with your family. While you are there a person that has not been vaccinated is walking around with the measles virus in their system. While that person shows no signs or symptoms of the measles, they are infecting others that haven’t been vaccinated, due to young age or other purposes. Now what turned out to be many people’s family vacations is now a life-threatening situation for some. This type of outbreak actually occurred during December of 2014, where 40 Californians were exposed to the measles at Disneyland and 91 additional cases of the outbreak strain also occurred from the people exposed affecting others (Blumberg et al, 2015). Outbreaks likes this can potentially be

In the United States we are very fortunate. For the most part we do not live in fear of disease outbreaks from day to day. Our government along with the Centers for Disease Control and Public Health Departments have managed to have adults and children vaccinated and set up recommendations regarding those vaccinations. Despite all that is done our country allows freedoms. One of these freedoms is to not vaccinate your child from communicable diseases due to personal beliefs. With the worlds populations becoming more mobile, that sets your child up for dangerous encounters; because some countries are not as strict on laws regarding vaccinations and some

Measles was discovered in the 19th century by a Persian Doctor, but was not recognized until 1957 as an infectious agent in human blood by a Scottish physician. In 1912 measles became a notifiable disease and in the first decade that records were kept there was on average 6,000 deaths per year reported from the disease. (Center For Disease Control). There is no definite origination of measles but scientists believe that it dates back to the Roman Empire about the 11th and 12th century (NCBI, 2010). The first outbreak known in America was in 1657 in Boston,

Facts and figures available to study the epidemiological data for the outbreak of measles include gathering suspected and confirmed cases of this disease from the World Health Organization. This is done by gathering serum samples from all suspected cases to determine if a measles specific immunoglobulin antibody is detected. This particular disease lives in the nose and throat of the infected individual and is considered contagious for a period of four days before the rash appears and for a further four days after the sighting of the rash.

In early April 2013 a measles outbreak was discovered in North Carolina. By mid-May the outbreak had been identified in Stokes and Orange Counties via 23 active cases. Every case was linked back to a family that had spent 3 months in India and had not been vaccinated. By the 16th of April the state laboratory of Public Health was able to confirm the diagnosis, with the last known case being confirmed on May 7th. The investigation of this outbreak revealed 4 patients with a confirmed diagnosis that had received one of vaccination of the two part series. The other 19 cases had not ever been vaccinated.

Despite significant progress in the fight against preventable disease, millions still die needlessly each year. According to UNICEF, originally known as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, a vaccine preventable disease is responsible for 2 million fatal infections worldwide each year. About 75% of these deaths occur in children under five years of age. (N) In more vivid terms, UNICEF notes that vaccine-preventable diseases kill a child every 20 seconds. (D) Due to high rates of childhood vaccination, the United States has experienced a dramatic reduction in such deaths. A comparison of the years 1950 and 2010 clearly illustrates the benefits of vaccinations. During this 60-year period, deaths from diphtheria reduced from 410 to 0, tetanus from 336 to 3, pertussis from 1,118 to 26, and polio from 1,904 to 0. Measles deaths dropped from 468 in 1950 to 0 in 2008, the last year a United States death rate was recorded. It’s not surprising that vaccinations have been touted as one of the top ten health achievements of the 20th century by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Measles was at one time in the not too distant past, a killer of those that became infected. Measles has been around for centuries. The first published, written account of the disease was in the ninth century by a Persian doctor. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website on measles, it was not until 1757 that a Scottish physician, named Francis Home, proved that something infectious in the blood was causing the disease. By the early 1900’s, the United States began requiring every healthcare provider and laboratory to report all identified cases, with approximately 6,000 deaths being

The new trend of parents not having their children vaccinated for measles is causing harm to the child and contributing to future outbreaks of the disease.

Out of all the three diseases that the MMR vaccine builds immunization for, it is least effective for measles. Measles is a disease that is transmitted through saliva and can be active in water droplets in the air and on surfaces for hours after.4 Because of this, it spreads easily from person to person because the infected patient does not have to be touching anyone else to transmit the disease. Examples of this recently can be found in California and amongst the Amish community. To begin with, an amusement park in California had an outbreak of measles in 2015. Though the cause is unknown, it is generally believed that someone traveling from another country first brought the disease and then it spread to others who may have touched or breathed in droplets of his salive.2 From here, the infected people spread the disease until people were being affected throughout the whole state as well as in some sections of Oregon.1 Another case of something similar happening can be found in the Amish communities. In 2016, a total of 383 Amish were officially diagnosed with the measles mainly due to their beliefes in not being vaccinated.2 After

Unvaccinated people can cause outbreaks of viruses that have been eradicated. In late 2014 a measles outbreak occurred when an unvaccinated child who was a carrier of the disease visited Disneyland. This caused 173 people from seventeen different states to contract the virus that was eradicated from the United States in 2002. In order for measles to be under control 94-99% of the population must be vaccinated. With the recent trend of not vaccinating, measles, along with other once eradicated, or nearly eradicated diseases are making a come-back.

We have all heard the old saying a bad apple can spoil the whole barrel. However, now there is research to prove it, at least in work situations . In the podcast, Ira Felps speaks to a professor in the Netherlands, who created an experiment to see what happens to productivity when a bad worker joins a team. Felps separated people into small groups and then gave them a task. One member of the group was an actor, after a short amount of time the rest of the group started behaving like the bad apples as well. The next part of the podcast talked about measles vaccinations. Measles cases are higher than they've been in decades mainly because more parents are nervous and refusing to vaccinate their children. Recently, an unvaccinated 7-year-old boy

In Michelle Fox’s article, Expect measles outbreak to continue, says doctor, Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine, says that the outbreak will continue for some time because there is a sufficient number of unvaccinated children to continue the spread of measles. According to the CDC, there have been 84 cases of measles and 67 of those have been linked to the outbreak at Disney. Dr. Schaffner also reiterates that measles can be brought to the United States from overseas. If someone from another country comes here with measles and is around unvaccinated children, there is potential to spread the disease.

Symptoms include high fever, cough, runny nose, and a rash, and can lead to pneumonia, hospitalization, or death. The infection can leave permanent damage to the brain and lungs. There is no antiviral medication for measles so it is easier to prevent it than to treat it. In 2016, the US had 70 confirmed cases of measles, mostly in unvaccinated people, and there were 73 confirmed cases of measles in unvaccinated children in Minnesota June 2017 alone (Howard, 2017, ¶2-3). Kristen Ehresmann, the director of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division at the State Department of Health said, “Many of the cases could have been prevented if people had gotten vaccinated” (Ehresmann,2017, ¶4). At least 8,250 people were exposed to the measles, mostly in schools, daycares, and healthcare facilities. There were a total of 21 hospitalizations (Howard, 2017, ¶6). A situation where vaccines did stop an outbreak was in 2005 when an 18-month-old Amish girl contracted polio and spread the disease to four other children who were too young to be vaccinated, but because the community had their vaccines, the herd immunity prevented a massive outbreak (Vaccine ProCon, 2018,

Now, many once-forgotten diseases are reappearing. TIME Magazine reported that “In 2014, the U.S. experienced a major outbreak of measles that totaled 383 cases and was primarily spreading among an unvaccinated Amish community in Ohio.” (Measles Outbreak) The number of cases of these diseases is going up when it can be easily prevented. Worldwide, “Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available.” (World Health