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Measles cases in Samoa more than double over past week as death toll rises - National
The number of suspected cases of measles on the Pacific island of Samoa has more than doubled over the past week to 3,530 and deaths related to the outbreak rose to 48 from 20 a week ago, the country’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday.
Samoa has become vulnerable to measles outbreaks as the number of people becoming immunized has declined with the World Health Organisation (WHO) saying vaccine coverage is just about 31 per cent.
[...] The government started a mandatory vaccination program on Nov. 20 after declaring a state of emergency due to the outbreak. The health ministry said in its statement that 57,132 people have since been vaccinated.
Schools and universities have been closed and most public gatherings banned on the island state of just 200,000, located south of the equator and half way between Hawaii and New Zealand.
Of the 48 deaths, 44 where among children under the age of four. Since Saturday, there have been 173 new cases of measles recorded and four people have died.
Neighboring New Zealand and a number of other countries and organizations, including the U.N. agency UNICEF, have delivered thousands of vaccines, medical supplies and have sent medical personnel to help with the outbreak.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 03 2019, @05:22AM (12 children)
The vaccine is not that effective with so many other people not having the vaccine. It's better than nothing, but some of the vaccinated people will surely catch measles.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:10AM (11 children)
It's a very very rare case but the vaccine can mutate and give you measels.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:37AM (8 children)
Truly khallow has no understanding of microbiology, immunity, or vaccination. It is only if you can reduce it to a market function, like renting out a backhoe to Samoans, who might get measles, that the khallow could comprehend.
OK, I feel generous. You idiot khallow! Pay attention! You are a very bad student! Here we go: herd immunity is achieved when enough of the population is innoculated to stop the spread of the pathogen, to (here is the important part) the unvaccinated. So the issue is not, and never was, that those who were innoculated were at risk of contracting the contagion, they were not. It is the non-vaccinated that were protected by sufficient vaccination, and so they are the ones who die when herd immunity is not achieved due to stupid khallow-like mother-wankers convincing people to not vaccinate their kids. Now they are dead, and it is all your libertariantard ass's fault.
I hope you die in a cholera epidemic.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Tuesday December 03 2019, @08:20AM (7 children)
Bzzzt. Sorry, Aristarchus, you fail hard this time. A small proportion of vaccinated people can be infected. But don't take my word for it, listen to the World Health Organisation [who.int]:
Important note: It's still far better to be vaccinated!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 03 2019, @11:05AM
Absolutely. A 1% chance of being infected during an outbreak beats a near 100% chance! Also, usually when someone who has been vaccinated does get infected, the course of the disease is milder (Dengue vaccine is alleged to have the opposite effect).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @11:16AM (3 children)
Which makes his point even more valid and important. Since effective vaccines are not 100% for same reasons that you can get measles multiple times for the same reason (your immune system fails to remember properly), it's even more important that everyone is vaccinated against these diseases. In case of measles, you need about 95+% vaccination rates to prevent disease from living in the population.
Living in a population means it becomes endemic. Like before vaccines when millions of people got measles every year and thousands died and more had lifelong complications.
The anti-vaxers are the main contributing factor to these disease outbreaks that can kill you or your children or elderly, even if you are vaccinated. That's just plain math. This is why these vaccines need to be made mandatory.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Tuesday December 03 2019, @01:25PM (2 children)
The harder he fails, the more valid his point? Is George Lucas writing these scripts?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @03:11PM
Actually there is an online internet action group (similar to JTRIG) with some pretty serious funding from industry. So yeah it might be George Lucus.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 03 2019, @08:52PM
"You can't win,
Vaderkhallow!. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
I don't think he was claiming there is zero chance of catching the measles when vaccinated. Everybody knows vaccines aren't 100% effective.
He was rebutting this claim, by my reading: "the vaccine can mutate and give you measels."
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday December 03 2019, @10:38PM
Aristarchus did think that vaccines are 100% effective:
He goes on to say that the risk is only to those who were unvaccinated.
This is the main problem with anti-vaxxers. If they were only endangering themselves and their families, that might be one thing. But their refusal to vaccinate can put my kids at risk even though they have been vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers are truly selfish parasites who rely on the efforts of others to protect themselves and their kids, while endangering everybody else in the process.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 03 2019, @02:52PM (1 child)
It's a very very rare case, but you could die in an automobile accident. Therefore we should eliminate automobiles.
It's a very very rare case, but some people die as a result of natural gas. Therefore we should eliminate natural gas as an inexpensive convenient efficient source of energy.
It's a very very rare case, but space satellites could come crashing down on your head. We must eliminate all satellites.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04 2019, @02:53AM
That last one reminded me of one of my favorite shows [wikipedia.org]. Gotta watch out for the toilet seats.