US measles epidemic.

[novaphile]

Deep-rooted inequalities are driving the latest diphtheria outbreak. But we can fix them

Remote Indigenous communities are bearing the brunt of the latest diphtheria outbreak. Inadequate housing may be one reason why.

theconversation.com

In Australia so far …

Very pleased with my local Doctor, who recommended a combined Diptheria, Pertusis and Tetanus vaccine, when I enquired about a Pertusis vaccine...

Today I learned that measles can kill a child 10 years later.

As vaccination rates fall in Australia, a British mother has a warning

Measles killed Rebecca Archer's daughter Renae slowly and silently over a decade. She has a message for the growing number of parents hesitant to have their children vaccinated.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Flo]

Very pleased with my local Doctor, who recommended a combined Diptheria, Pertusis and Tetanus vaccine, when I enquired about a Pertusis vaccine...

Today I learned that measles can kill a child 10 years later.

As vaccination rates fall in Australia, a British mother has a warning

Measles killed Rebecca Archer's daughter Renae slowly and silently over a decade. She has a message for the growing number of parents hesitant to have their children vaccinated.

www.abc.net.au

Too many people have no idea of how those diseases are propagated, of what they actually do (which in the case of tetanus is particularly worrying), or of their potential long term consequences.

 

[dann]

Wonder what the next disease to make a comeback will be? Any takers for diphtheria?

:

Diphteria: List of epidemics (Wikipedia)
In December 2023 there was an outbreak at a school in Luton, in the United Kingdom.

In , we have had only two cases (2016), both in Syrian refugees, since 1998: Difteri I Danmark ((Wikipedia)
As for measles, the estimate is that as many as 100,000 Danes (pop. 6 mill.) are unvaccinated: Mæslinger (Wikipedia)

 

[dann]

Too many people have no idea of how those diseases are propagated, of what they actually do (which in the case of tetanus is particularly worrying), or of their potential long term consequences.

Cuba's five COVID-19 vaccines: the full story on Soberana 01/02/Plus, Abdala and Mambisa (LSE, Mar 31, 2021)
Soberana 02 is unique amongst COVID vaccines for another reason: it combines the antigen's receptor-binding domain with a deactivated form of tetanus in order to boost immune response, making it the only existing "conjugate vaccine" for COVID-19.

I am not sure if this also makes it work as a tetanus booster shot, but I think it probably does.

 

[dann]

CDC: Only 1 in 10 hospital patients early in the West Texas measles outbreak had underlying conditions (CIDRAP, June 5, 2026)
A new study in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their state partners analyzes the patients hospitalized during the first two months of the measles outbreak that swept through West Texas in 2025, finding that nearly all were unvaccinated children, only 11% had preexisting conditions, and respiratory complications were common.
(...)
“Vaccination remains a critical tool for the prevention of measles infection and severe disease,” write the authors, noting that one dose of the vaccine is approximately 93% effective at preventing the disease, and two doses are 97% effective. In addition, measles cases that do occur in vaccinated people tend to be milder, posing a lower risk of serious complications.

 

[theprestige]

Wonder what the next disease to make a comeback will be? Any takers for diphtheria?

0.0006% of the population doesn't seem like much of a comeback.

 

[theprestige]

:


In , we have had only two cases (2016), both in Syrian refugees, since 1998: Difteri I Danmark ((Wikipedia)
As for measles, the estimate is that as many as 100,000 Danes (pop. 6 mill.) are unvaccinated: Mæslinger (Wikipedia)

That doesn't seem like an epidemic.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm 67 years old and just got an MMR booster vaccine.

 

[The Atheist]

Wonder what the next disease to make a comeback will be? Any takers for diphtheria?

Polio.

Get some kids in iron lungs! They're nature's way of doing disease, not these damned vaccines!

Very pleased with my local Doctor, who recommended a combined Diptheria, Pertusis and Tetanus vaccine, when I enquired about a Pertusis vaccine...

I got one of those last week when I needed a tetanus shot. I wasn't aware they came in 3-packs, and I certainly don't mind getting the pertussis one for free.

0.0006% of the population doesn't seem like much of a comeback.

Seriously, you're a contrarian. America was measles-free.

Nomenclature is irrelevant.

 

[Trebuchet]

Too many people have no idea of how those diseases are propagated, of what they actually do (which in the case of tetanus is particularly worrying), or of their potential long term consequences.

Including the guy in charge of Health for the whole USA.

 

[Resume]

Including the guy in charge of Health for the whole USA.

Well, others too. Just a few posts north for example.

 

[dann]

That doesn't seem like an epidemic.

And so what?

Wait, we're calling 0.0006% of the population an epidemic?

And I already told you why it's irrelevant:

I don't know what we call it. The OP called it an epidemic, but most articles about it calls it an outbreak.
If you do a word search, epidemic occurred only once on this page before your post, which doubled it.
Now it's five times.
Outbreak occurred 20 times before this post, #95. Now it's 22 times.
I don't think what we call it affects the transmission of the measles virus in the USA at all.

How many more times are you going to tell us?
What do we have to do to make you focus on what it is instead of on what to call it.
It the title of the thread annoys you so much, you should ask a moderator to change it to U.S. Measles Outbreak. I don't think anybody'll mind.

 

[dann]

Anguished Parents. Doctors in Tears. Utah’s Long Measles Outbreak Takes a Toll. ()KFF Health News, June 10, 2026)
The state’s outbreak means adapting to America’s new reality, in which vaccine-preventable diseases become common again.
Ben Dowse hadn’t expected to treat measles when he became a doctor, but there he was, examining a newborn exposed to the virus in the womb. The infected mother had given birth just hours earlier. The hospital had alerted Dowse to the case before delivery, and he’d braced himself for the worst.
(...)
Measles can cause brain damage, deafness, or death in newborns. If the baby entered the world with a measles rash and fever, Dowse was prepared to give the infant a spinal tap to assess the risk of neurological damage.

Do any of the words upset you, theprestige?
Notice that the headline, once again, says outbreak.

Gavin Yamey on bsky, June 10, 2026
The world that RFK Jr dreamed of
Health workers were “forced into a new paradigm” due to declining federal support & falling vaccination rates
There are babies on life support, kids missing weeks of school, & high-cost treatment & containment, reports KFF

 

[dann]

Utah marks a year of battling measles, with no clear end in sight (AP/PBS, June 20, 2026)
Utah has spent the past year fighting measles outbreaks — a grim milestone that could affect whether the United States can keep its measles-free designation.
More than 680 people have gotten sick since the state's first outbreak began on June 20, 2025.
Unlike measles outbreaks in Texas, South Carolina and Arizona, the spread in Utah has been tough to contain to one region — infecting undervaccinated communities in nearly every county.

 

[dann]

CIDRAP Op-Ed: Call it what it is—the US has lost its hold on measles elimination (CIDRAP, June 24, 2026)
The definition of measles elimination leaves little room for interpretation, and US scientists helped write it. Measles is considered endemic in a given region once local transmission runs continuously for at least one year (so cases that are imported from international travel don’t count unless that person transmits it to others domestically).
(...)
The timeline makes this hard to wave away. The massive outbreak in West Texas began on January 20, 2025, which puts the country well past the one-year mark. Seven months later when that outbreak, which resulted in 762 cases, was declared over, measles cases did not stop so much as the outbreaks relocated to other parts of the state and country.

 

[dann]

With 61 new cases, US measles outbreak fast approaching last year’s total (CIDRAP, July 10, 2026)
he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 61 new US measles cases today and 2,231 for the year, as Virginia has become the country’s latest hot spot.
Last year the CDC recorded 2,289 infections for the entire year, so the nation is just 58 cases short of that as we pass the midpoint of the year. The 2025 total was the most since 1991, and the United States is now on track to lose its measles elimination status that it gained in 2000.

 

[dann]

A reminder:

CIDRAP Op-Ed: Measles isn't a coin flip—death isn't the only bad outcome (July 16, 2026)
A 2019 study in Science found measles erased anywhere from 11% to 73% of children's existing antibody repertoire, and even kids with mild cases lost about 20% on average. Your body can be left having to relearn defenses against infections it had already beaten, and it can take two to three years to rebuild what measles took. A statistical analysis of childhood mortality data suggests that, before the vaccine, this immune amnesia may account for as much as half of all childhood deaths from infectious disease, not from measles itself, but from everything a weakened immune system could no longer fight.
Measles does obvious harm in the moment, too. About one in five unvaccinated people who catch measles in the United States end up hospitalized, often with pneumonia or dehydration. Utah's ongoing outbreak has hospitalized 8% of its cases so far. In South Carolina, one hospital system that treated the outbreak there saw 16% of its confirmed patients admitted, two with encephalitis, or brain swelling.

 

[dann]

Studies Document Brain Swelling, Sepsis in U.S. Measles Outbreaks (Medpage Today, July 16, 2026)
– Kids and the unvaccinated were most likely to end up hospitalized in South Carolina and Utah

 

[dann]

Most measles patients who sought care at Prisma Health in South Carolina were kids (CIDRAP, July 16, 2026)
Most of the measles patients Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital cared for during South Carolina's recent outbreak were kids aged 10 years or younger.
According to a letter from the health system's physicians, published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Prisma treated 81 people for measles from October 2025 to April 2026.

US measles cases approach last year’s record-setting total (CIDRAP, July 17, 2026)
With 29 newly confirmed cases, the the US measles total is just 29 cases short of last year’s sobering total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update today.

 

[dann]

Measles cases reach 35-year high in US (CIDRAP, July 22, 2026)
It’s only July, but the United States has already recorded 2,295 measles cases this year, a number not seen since 1991, according to new data published on the Johns Hopkins University measles tracker.
(...)
“Reaching this milestone is particularly striking because we are only in July, and measles cases are still being reported throughout the country, with outbreaks in Virginia and Pennsylvania,” said William Moss, MD, MPH, a pediatric infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a statement to the press. “We urgently need to address the reasons for under-vaccination in some of our communities, particularly the disinformation that leads to mistrust of measles vaccines.”
(...)
Ten percent of all US case-patients ages 5 and under this year have required hospitalization, as have 10% of those 20 years and older.