Measles Outbreak

We live in a country where all children go to school to gain an education and 25% of them will go onto receive some type of college degree. Compare this to low-income countries, in which children are 16 times as likely to die prior to their fifth birthday (Nickitas, Middaugh & Aries, 2016). Beyond the lens of our smartphones, Facebook friends and Nike sneakers is a world full of desperate people wishing to have enough food to eat for today. Many parts of the world lack sanitation, safe housing, sparse medical care and no medication. The global health issue are everyone’s problems not only for the sake of altruism but, with the increase in global travel for routine business and pleasure, dangerous pathogen are no longer confine by boarders. The Ebola outbreak four years ago, proved the necessity of a global solution to global health issues. The collaborative practice of several world health agencies and economically developed countries along with the use of volunteers, statistical updates, the latest literature and practices kept this outbreak mostly contained to its region of origin and the death toll to approximately 11,000 people (mainly in West Africa) (WHO,

For example, “Hospitals have seen an influx of patients suffering from preventable diseases, the aid group said”. These preventable diseases can include diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis A, and most commonly malaria. Two out of every five children survive into their adulthood; because of unsanitary conditions, these diseases which are not prominent in well developed countries, have pronounced themselves as some of the most dangerous diseases in the country. This decrease of sanitation can be partially blamed on the ongoing war in the Congo. The rebel groups use children soldiers to fight their opponents. Furthermore, hospitals reported that, “Since government troops and rebels began clashing in the volatile eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, ‘the numbers arriving at the hospital have gone through the roof,’ said Dr. Louis Kamate of the Virunga Referral Hospital in Goma”. Conflicts and poverty have been proven to be the main factors of child death in the Congo. In order for the society to be successful, they must put an end to this terrible aspect of the country.

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,

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.

When an outbreak occurs of a disease as contagious as measles, the first response should be to quarantine the affected people. Since measles does not transmit from animals, there is no need to eliminate the animals that may have come into contact with the infected individuals. Clinics need to be set up for those that could have been contaminated and quarantine those individuals as well. Travel needs to be banned to and from the community that has the outbreak declared. With all the quarantines, this will affect the local schools, grocery stores, local businesses, and the overall economic status. The media will be in high demand to help communicate the orders from the local

As many are aware, the measles was a huge threat to children before people developed a successful vaccine for this disease. Before vaccines, “an average of 500,000 annual” cases of the measles got reported each year in the United States; since 2000, when vaccines became popular, there have been about “62 cases per year” (Omer). As one can see, the amount of cases of the measles decreased since the measles vaccine. This data shows how vaccinating children decreases the chances of contracting a dangerous disease like the measles.

In December of 2014, an outbreak of measles, which started in Disneyland, resulted in nearly two hundred people being sickened across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The highly contagious respiratory disease spread for three months. Among those who contracted the illness, one developed severe pneumonia and multiple organ injury, while another suffered acute respiratory distress syndrome. So, why did an illness, which was purportedly eliminated sixteen years ago, experience a surge so dramatic that it caused more cases in 2014 than in the five preceding years combined? According to the CDC, the outbreak could be boiled down to one simple reason: “The majority of people were unvaccinated.” So while the California measles outbreak is a thing of the past, the fight to increase compliance with vaccinations continues. Although the benefits and safety of vaccinations are undisputed by the medical and scientific community, there are still sizeable groups of “anti-vaxxers” who refuse to vaccinate their children. These groups spread misconceptions, sometimes unknowingly, and become even more influential when coupled with the power of the internet and social media. Therefore, in order to increase compliance with routine vaccinations, the misconceptions of parents should be targeted, and legislation should be changed in order to prevent leniency and loopholes regarding vaccine exemptions.

Measles was a common virus in the U.S. before 1963, when the first vaccine became available and prior to 1963 there were approximately 549,000 cases of measles and 495 deaths

Satisfying these conditions requires creating partnerships with local health stakeholders to generate sustainable health services and long-term medical records. A primary strategy of prioritizing treatment for acute sicknesses and infectious diseases over chronic and non-infectious cases in the interim should be utilized. Basic medical screening will permit monitoring of potential epidemiological and nutritional issues, and can permit capacity building for early detection of outbreak and enabling rapid responses. Linking health interventions to DDR can take the form of many types of programming. Therefore choice of programs should be based off an analysis of the political and legal arrangements of peace protocols, and the specific nature of the conditions on the ground. Local health sectors should be represented in all established programs to oversee the health intervention from the earliest possible stage. Including and utilizing local health care providers can ensure that local public health concerns are taken into account when key planning decisions are made.

Measles is an airborne disease that is spread through respiration (contact with fluids from an infected person's nose and mouth, either directly or through aerosol transmission (coughing or sneezing)), and is highly contagious—90% of people without immunity sharing living space with an infected person will catch it.[4] An asymptomatic incubation period occurs nine to twelve days from initial exposure. The period of infectivity has not been definitively established, some saying it lasts from two to four days prior, until two to five days following the onset of the rash (i.e., four to nine days infectivity in total), whereas others say it lasts from two to four days prior until the complete disappearance of the rash. The rash usually appears

Numerous diseases that used to be widespread in the U.S. are now nearly eliminated. “An epidemic of rubella in 1964-65 infected 12½ million Americans, killed 2,000 babies, and caused 11,000 miscarriages. In 2012, 9 cases of rubella were reported to CDC.” (What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?) Another disease that prevailed before its vaccine was polio, as you can see in this graph. The red line shows when the polio vaccine was introduced. In 2014, CNN reported that “Just five years ago, India was home to nearly half the global polio cases and considered one of the most technically difficult places to eradicate the disease, because of sanitation challenges and high-density population. India has been certified polio-free by the World Health Organization after going three years without an endemic case of polio. The eradication of polio in India is heralded as one of the biggest achievements in global health efforts.” (Madison Park) However, this isn’t the only success story, these are the percent decreases of before and after certain vaccines were introduced in the U.S. Here, diphtheria has a 100 percent decrease in the U.S after its vaccine was introduced. From 21,000 cases of diphtheria, there are now ZERO endemic cases in the U.S. What about measles? Before its vaccine, there were roughly 530,000 cases each year in

Eradication of Problem : Key measles-endemic countries are conflict-affected, the highly infectious nature of measles, combined with increasing

The Latin name for measles is rubeola. The pathogen which causes the disease is a paramyxovirus, which is one of a group of RNA (ribonucleic acid) viruses. Measles is a respiratory disease caused by a virus, and also comes out in a rash. The virus enters the body via the respiratory system, and grows in the cells at the back of the throat and in the cells that line the lungs, from there it then enters the blood stream and circulates the body.

In the 10th century, a Persian doctor published the first written record measles. In his record, he states the differences between smallpox and measles. (Wikipedia, 2016) His work on Measles was one of the first scientific treatments of infectious diseases and bases for future research. Modern scientists suggested that measles might have come from animals (specifically cows), as the virus was highly similar to Rinderpest, which infected cattle. Measles virus has evolved in an environment where cattle and humans lived in close proximity. (Loving, 2016) It has now been proven that humans are the natural hosts of the virus and no animal carriers are known to exist. Before a vaccine became available in 1963, the measles virus infected nearly all children by the time they were 15 years of age (Pearce, 2015)Enders created the vaccine of the virus in 1963, and the Measles virus infects approximately 30 million people annually, with a death of 197,000, which occurs in third world countries. After the vaccine was invented, the number of measles cases was 80% less compared to the pre-vaccine era. Researchers are conducting research to find oral antiviral drugs to treat people exposed to the measles virus and

In Sweden, where I live, the disease is not even seen as deadly anymore. Only approximately 6,500 Swedes are today infected