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Emergency declared near Portland for measles outbreak in anti-vaccine hotspot
Health officials in Clark County, Washington have declared a public health emergency for a measles outbreak in an area with a high rate of unvaccinated children.
[...] Nearly eight percent of children in Clark County were exempt from standard vaccination for the 2017-2018 school year, according to state records reported by the Washington Post. Breaking down that eight percent, about seven percent of kids had personal or religious exemptions and the remaining one percent or so had medical exemptions. Factoring in the rest of the population, the county is below the 92 percent to 94 percent range some experts consider required to prevent the spread of highly contagious diseases such as measles.
[...] “It’s really awful and really tragic and totally preventable,” Peter J. Hotez told the Post. Hotez is a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Portland is a total train wreck when it comes to vaccine rates,” he added.
[...] Correction: This article has been updated to correct the state in which Clark County resides. It is in Washington State, not Oregon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:54PM
To be fair, for those with predominantly European (or probably Asian) ancestry measles is a minor disease compared to polio, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, etc. Most people get through it with no lasting permanent effects. The only really common danger is to pregnant women who are likely to give birth to a deformed child. https://www.google.com/search?q=measles+pregnancy+birth+defects [google.com]
OTOH, Polynesians, Native Americans, and several other groups that were isolated from central Asia may find it deadly.
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