[Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

[Punisher]

No. I wasn't thinking about a vaccination.
It was definitely along the lines that if you had chicken pix you couldn't get X.
But it's quite possible that I'm misremembering

The opposite. Normally measles, mumps, rubella (German measles) and varicella (chicken pox) provide lifelong immunity, whether through infection or vaccination. If you've had chicken pox in the past, usually you are immune for life (just to chicken pox, nothing else).

But if you get measles, it can cause immunity amnesia, so it's possible to get chicken pox again.

To further muddy the waters, the chicken pox virus is still lurking in your body, patiently waiting to break into shingles. If you've had the pox, you need the shingles vaccine.

Yep. Got that as soon as i could.

[Smoove_B]

At 259 cases, and growing:

The number of measles cases associated with an outbreak in western Texas has grown to 259, with 36 cases reported over the last three days, according to new data released Friday.

Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown. Two cases have occurred in persons vaccinated with two doses, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Breakthrough infections, when a vaccinated person is infected are rare, as the measles vaccine provides up to 97% protection after 2 doses.

At least 34 people have been hospitalized so far.

In the Texas outbreak, children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, with 115, followed by children ages 4 and under comprising 86 cases, according to the data.

Of note:

There are more cases so far this year than the entirety of last year, which saw 285 cases nationwide, CDC data shows.

[hitbyambulance]

To further muddy the waters, the chicken pox virus is still lurking in your body, patiently waiting to break into shingles. If you've had the pox, you need the shingles vaccine.

but only for 50 and older. they won't give it to you if you're younger (i asked)

[Kraken]

Youth is a medical condition unto itself.

[Max Peck]

Apparently we're seeing measles outbreaks up here, too. We're probably doomed, since public health officials are just talking about how people need to be vaccinated. No mention at all of the really effective responses, such as ivermectin and human breast milk.

Ontario urging measles vaccinations amid worst outbreak in more than a decade

The province's chief medical officer of health is urging Ontarians to make sure they are immunized against the measles, amid the most severe outbreak in the province in more than a decade.

In a statement Friday, Dr. Kieran Moore said there have been 350 cases of the virus in Ontario since late October — with 173 of those infections reported within the last several weeks — and 31 related hospitalizations.

"Over 96 per cent of cases in Ontario are among individuals who are unimmunized, or have unknown immunization status, and were exposed in their community or while travelling," Moore said. He added that a majority of infections are concentrated in the southwestern part of the province among unvaccinated people.

"This is the most measles cases Ontario has seen in over a decade. It is critical we work together to mitigate further spread of this vaccine-preventable disease," he said.

The statement noted the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine has been used for more than 50 years and is "proven to be one of the safest and most effective vaccines available." Children fully immunized with two doses of the vaccine are nearly 100 per cent protected, while a single dose provides roughly 95 per cent protection, Moore said.

[Isgrimnur]

Newborn babies exposed to measles in Texas hospital

On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles.

By that time, other new moms, newborn babies and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world.

Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.

A 2021 study found that the therapy is highly effective in protecting exposed newborns from getting sick.

[Smoove_B]

Not really the headline I want to read:

Texas is poised to make measles a nationwide epidemic, public health experts say

With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn’t start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts.

Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has made a resurgence in West Texas communities, jumping hundreds of miles to the northern border of the Panhandle and East Texas, and invading bordering states of New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Based on the rapid spread of cases statewide — more than 200 over 50 days — public health officials predict that it could take Texas a year to contain the spread. With cases continuously rising and the rest of the country’s unvaccinated population at the outbreak’s mercy, Texas must create stricter quarantine requirements, increase the vaccine rate, and improve contact tracing to address this measles epidemic before it becomes a nationwide problem, warn infectious disease experts and officials in other states.

[Isgrimnur]

[LawBeefaroni]

Newborn babies exposed to measles in Texas hospital

Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.

A 2021 study found that the therapy is highly effective in protecting exposed newborns from getting sick.

But is it available at Farm & Fleet?

[Isgrimnur]

Probably

Immune globulin bovine is a medical food that is used for clinical dietary management of enteropathy (intestinal or bowel problems) in patients who have a limited or impaired capacity to ingest, digest, absorb, or metabolize food or certain nutrients.

[Smoove_B]

Horrific - and not just because it involves Ohio:

A Michigan resident has died of rabies after receiving a transplanted organ in Ohio, the Toledo-Lucas County (Ohio) Health Department reported Wednesday.

...

The patient had received a transplanted organ and was under care in Lucas County, where they died. Because the person was a Michigan resident, it will be counted as a Michigan human rabies case rather than an Ohio one, the local health department said. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it is Michigan's first human case of rabies since 2009.

...
Fewer than 10 deaths are reported each year among humans in the United States.

Each year, 60,000 Americans receive medical care after a potential rabies exposure.

Really need to know more about how this happened; hopefully there's a detailed write up in the MMWR soon...

[Isgrimnur]

Texas reaches 400 measles cases as US deals with outbreaks in 5 states

Spoiler: