mumps & vaccines?

[zosima]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0946228920080410?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

More fun facts about vaccines. The article make the good point that many countries don't vaccinate, so while people are completely silly to avoid vaccination, statistically they are a small part of the problem(unless you live in the burbs, lol)

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Heretic!

Those that don't provide their children with all the recommended vaccines on time are evil, I tell you! Letting their offspring spread their pestilence.

 

[zosima]

Heretic!

Those that don't provide their children with all the recommended vaccines on time are evil, I tell you! Letting their offspring spread their pestilence.

I'm sure I'll be smitten with an awful case of mumps for that last post.

Now HPV vaccine, on the other hand, is something I can get uppity about, from a strictly self-interested perspective. lol

 

[Ixion]

As an immunologist that does some work on vaccine development, I can't even begin to express that the task is somewhat daunting. There is no clear definition about what makes a good vaccine on a molecular level. Immunologists generally agree that a vaccine should be safe to the general population and should provide long-lasting immunity. Even though we are understanding more and more about the immune system everyday, there is still a lot we don't understand. I am not terribly surprised that some diseases make comebacks. Hopefully the people that are working on a new vaccine will be able to come up with a better one soon. One thing about measles and mumps are that they are strictly human pathogens, like smallpox was. This means that if everyone in the world were vaccinated, they would be eradicated. Although the Reuters article shows that the outbreaks are occuring in developed nations, third world countries remain the natural reservoir due to no vaccines being delivered. It is likely with our global community that the instances of mumps outbreaks started by unvaccinated persons introducing the virus into communities with waning immunity.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDisease/tb/9062

Good vaccine coverage against mumps may have saved tens of thousands of young adults during the mumps outbreak that hit the Midwest in 2006, researchers said.

Rather than shaking confidence in the vaccine, these findings should be reassuring that vaccine policy has been effective even in the face of a potential epidemic, said co-author Jane F. Seward, M.P.H., also of the CDC.

 

[robinson]

The outbreak of the viral disease came despite the widespread use of a second dose of a mumps vaccine, produced by Merck, beginning in 1990.

Eighty-four percent of the people between the ages of 18 and 24 who became ill in the outbreak had received the second recommended dose, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0946228920080410?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Huh? How can that be?

 

[geni]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0946228920080410?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Huh? How can that be?

Because the vaccine is not 100% effective and most people in the area will have been vaccinated.

 

[fls]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0946228920080410?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Huh? How can that be?

The proportion of people who are vaccinated in an outbreak essentially reflects the underlying vaccination rate. It's not a particularly useful number (which is why it looks a bit strange in this context). What would be more useful is the proportion of people who were vaccinated and exposed to mumps that didn't develop mumps (vaccine effectiveness) (the study wasn't set up to measure this). Or the ratio of the proportion of unvaccinated (or inadequately vaccinated) people who got mumps over the proportion* of vaccinated people who got mumps (odds ratio). They didn't calculate that number (they don't have the information you need to make an exact calculation), but from the numbers given it looks roughly like the odds of getting mumps if you were unvaccinated was 5 times the odds of getting mumps if you were vaccinated.

Linda

* technically this should be odds, not proportion, but in this situation they are essentially the same and I think the term 'proportion' is more generally understood

 

[Vigilanty]

Those that don't provide their children with all the recommended vaccines on time are evil, I tell you! Letting their offspring spread their pestilence.

LOL

Dr. Offit once said we humans can handle 10,000 vaccines. Would not giving all of them be considered evil then?

I only had a few in my life time. Don't know why. Guess my mom was lazy. Anyway, I don't get the yearly flu shot nor did I update tetanus in I don't know how may years. I am getting too old to even think about vaccines for me. Is that evil?

Just wondering.