Prevention Of Measles Outbreak

An outbreak of Measles would have a huge impact on a community as a whole.  Educating students would come to a temporary halt as students would need to be assessed by healthcare workers for any physical ailments and for anyone that has never been vaccinated.  Any students discovered to be symptomatic and possibly infected would need to be isolated and treated, and any students without immunity would need to be vaccinated.  This would also be the case with businesses in that employees would need to be assessed as well, which would slow down productivity for the businesses.  Hospitals would have to invest time into making sure all healthcare workers were immunized and getting immunizations to the ones that were not or send them home after making sure they were not infected.  Special

An infection in my community would quickly become an outbreak of measles and would probably spread quickly infecting many and claiming lives of young and old. A Measles outbreak is a strong possibility due to a large religious group with thousands of members in my community that do not believe in vaccinations, and only allow for limited healthcare. Popular organic lifestyles and refusal of vaccinations are believed to have aided in spread of a recent outbreak of Measles in California. The virus detected in California was identical to one that caused a large outbreak in the Philippines last year. The California outbreak that was noted from December 2014 to February 2015 notes that there were 125 confirmed cases, and 15 of the cases were confirmed to have been linked to the

A measles outbreak in my community would cause massive strain on our resources at the local level. Being the small community we are, the threat of spreading the disease is always a real concern. There are two banks, two gas stations, 18 churches and 5 schools within the county limits. The hospital in neighboring Pasquotank is relatively small for the areas it serves, the emergency room has eight fast track beds, twenty six main side (including tow trauma bays) and 13 chest pain beds, the other floors hold a maximum census of 30 with 6 nurses. The strain on the hospital and healthcare staff would be significant, the other floors stay at full census almost daily without any outbreaks. I do believe depending on the number affected it would be comparable to when the flu hits our community hard and the emergency room has long wait times and the chest pain unit is used as overflow for admitted patients without beds. These count for long stays and short supplies. The hospital requires all employees to be up to date on all vaccinations, however the risk to passing the disease to other patients is a concern. The fast track area is where we set up isolation for contagious disease, as it provides distance from the main but is still within close proximity to the nurse’s station. The need for all hands on

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

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.

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.

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,

In late 2014, 146 children were confirmed to have contracted measles from a single source- a single infected person, who contracted the virus overseas, and then went to a public place effectively allowing the transmission of the pathogen to other people who were at the same amusement park the same day as them. This strain of infection was confirmed to identical to the same outbreak occurring in the Philippines, resulting in 21,420 confirmed cases and 110 deaths. (Zipprich J, 2015)All of the case from the amusement park could have been prevented if there had been more stringent requirements in vaccination enforcement and scheduling. This is just one such example of a potentially deadly outbreak occurring from the result of poor vaccination

Individuals that are not fully immunized should be identified and counseled regarding the risk involved especially when travelling out of the country or to areas frequented by international travelers such as amusement parks (SC DHEC, 2015). The identification process should occur at every point of care, including the emergency room, physician office, health department, and school nurse. This identification process and subsequent education could decrease the number of persons that are not receiving vaccinations in a timely manner. Vaccines should be available for administration at every service provider location in the community to improve timely vaccinations. The education provided in the community regarding measles and outbreak control strategies should be provided face to face as well as reinforced with posters and pamphlets available through the CDC

Those who have measles normally obtain a virus that is very contagious, which tends to live in an individuals mucus (Transmission 1). Many people who become infected think that it is simply a cold, and that with time it will go away on its own. Little do they know that the “cold” they are carrying around with them is easily spreading and taking some people’s lives. This virus is highly contagious and can be spread similarly to the common cold, as it is transmitted in the air through coughing and sneezing. If one does happen to go to the doctor when experiencing these symptoms, the doctor should ask them if they have been properly vaccinated for measles and also whether they have recently traveled into a foreign country. They should also ask if there has been a measles outbreak in or near their community (Rubeola 1). These questions are asked in order to rule out certain probabilities when determining what the disease is. This also allows the doctor to report to local public health officials, who can then warn the community and other places where the infected individual may have been, in order to stop the disease from spreading. All of these precautions are taken, as measles leads can lead to morbidity and in extreme cases,

Measles is a highly contagious virus that affects thousands of children every year. In 2014, a survey from the World Health Organization reported that measles causes about 314 deaths every day. 1Decades of research have allowed scientists to develop an effective vaccine. Despite the vaccine having a 93% effectiveness rate, this disease continues to remain a concern to public health.1

Shots might hurt and can be life-threatening but it can be worth to prevent disease. Immunization is also known as vaccination. They are essential for adults as well as children to protect against infectious diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and many others diseases (“Immunization: MedlinePlus,” 2014). Measles is one of the highly infectious diseases caused by virus among all of them. It spreads through the air by coughing and sneezing. It starts with the symptoms like fever, runny nose, cough, sore throat, red eyes and rashes spread all over the body. Usually measles can be prevented with complete recovery as soon as it is vaccinated with MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccines but it can lead