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Vaccine Campaign Leads to Elimination of Rubella in the Americas

posted by CoolHand on Friday May 01 2015, @12:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-bed-bugs-will-be-next dept.

AnonTechie writes in with this article:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/30/vaccine-campaign-leads-to-elimination-of-rubella-in-the-americas/

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) got together with the Pan American Health Organization to announce some promising news: there have been no new transmissions of the rubella virus in the entire Western Hemisphere since 2009. As a result, the virus has been declared eliminated in this region, joining smallpox and polio on that elite list.

Rubella, commonly called the German measles, doesn't cause severe symptoms in the vast majority of infected individuals. If a pregnant woman is infected, however, the disease can cause miscarriages or a suite of birth defects. Before the advent of an effective vaccine, the WHO says that up to 20,000 children a year in Latin America and the Caribbean were born with rubella-related birth defects; that's also the number that occurred during the last major outbreak in the US.

The widespread use of the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) is partly to thank for the virus' elimination. Caribbean countries also used an adult vaccination program to help cut transmission in their populations. As a result, the last infection with a local origin occurred in 2009. Since then, several cases have been reported within the hemisphere, but all have traced back to infections overseas.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday May 01 2015, @01:47PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday May 01 2015, @01:47PM (#177461)

    ... and nobody getting in who's not supposed to.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday May 01 2015, @01:53PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday May 01 2015, @01:53PM (#177463)

    Actually that might be an agenda of certain groups... which also seem to coincide with anti-vax groups too...

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 01 2015, @05:38PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday May 01 2015, @05:38PM (#177531) Journal

      Anti-vax groups are generally against immigrants or for?

      • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:20AM

        by nitehawk214 (1304) on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:20AM (#177763)

        Anti-vax and anti-immigration tend to be the conservative/republican/religious groups in the USA. Though there are plenty of new-new-age anti-vax liberals as well.

        --
        "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh