UK: update on measles

[Gert van der Hoek]

Measles outbreak among travellers 'could spread'


Publisher: Jon Land

Published: 22/06/2007 -

Measles outbreak among travellers 'could spread' A measles outbreak among travellers may have spread to the wider community, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said today.

A total of 79 cases of measles linked to travellers have been confirmed in England so far this year, the HPA said.

Some of the travellers had a particular strain - D4 - which has also been found in several people not connected with the travelling community.

Of 133 cases reported in England so far this year, 68 have been among travellers, 11 among people who have had contact with travellers, and 54 among other people, the HPA said.

In its measles update, the agency said there was evidence of "limited spread" outside the travelling community.

Of the 79 cases linked to travellers, 21 were in London, 11 in the South East, 32 in the East of England, six in the East Midlands, three in West Midlands, two in South West, three in Yorkshire and Humber and one in the North West.

Three cases have also been reported in Scotland - two known to be imported infections in travellers from a Romanian community.

No cases have been confirmed in Wales or Northern Ireland so far this year, the HPA said.

The report noted that only six people out of the 133 cases reported had been vaccinated against the disease.

There have been concerns about the apparent rise in the number of measles cases in the last 18 months, with some experts blaming fears over giving children the controversial MMR jab.

In 2006, there were 736 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales compared with 191 cases in 2004 and 438 cases in 2003.

Symptoms of measles include a high temperature, cough, runny nose, and red and watery eyes.

A rash of spots then appears over the next few days.

In April 2006, a 13-year-old boy from a travelling family in the North West became the first person in the UK in 14 years to die from the disease.

http://www.24dash.com/health/22784.htm

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: UK: update on measles

Measles outbreak affects children

An outbreak of measles has struck up to 21 children across South Yorkshire, it has emerged.

The Health Protection Agency said five cases had been officially confirmed and another 16 children were showing "extremely convincing" symptoms.

All those affected are children aged between just three months and 12 years who have not had the MMR inoculation.

Eleven of the cases are in Sheffield, the first outbreak of the disease in the city for five years.

The others are in Barnsley and Rotherham.

Letters have been sent to family doctors to alert them to the outbreak.

Dr Rosy McNaught, from the South Yorkshire Health Protection Agency, urged parents to let their children have the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

She said: "It is the only way to prevent measles. Measles is the most infectious childhood disease.

"It cherry-picks the children who have not been immunised.

"These children who have been getting measles have been horribly ill with it.

"It's only when your child gets measles that you can understand what a horrible illness it is."

Dr McNaught said she expected more cases to come to light over the next few days, as several of the children seemed to have contracted measles during the last week of the school term.

She said children with weakened immune systems, such as those with cancer or leukaemia, could die if they come into contact with the disease.

The MMR vaccine was introduced in the UK in 1988 and by 1992 more than 90% of children were being immunised.

Children are given a first dose at 12 to 15 months and a second, booster dose, at between three and five years old.

Take-up of the vaccine has dropped in recent years because of research claims it may be linked to autism.

But the research, first published in 1998, has since been widely discredited.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/6929671.stm

Published: 2007/08/03 13:34:26 GMT

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: UK: update on measles

Rich countries like Britain blamed for spreading measles, doctors say

The Associated Press

Friday, August 3, 2007

LONDON: Britain's health system was recently singled out for praise in the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko." But one key area where it scores less than stellar grades is measles eradication.

In fact, doctors fear Britain may be spreading the disease to other countries rather than helping to stamp it out.

Britain transmitted three cases to the United States last year — more than most other countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There's even a risk Britain may send the virus to poor African nations that are far less equipped to deal with the disease.

"It's tragic that there is still measles in the U.K.," said Dr. Samuel Katz, co-inventor of the measles vaccine and an infectious diseases specialist at Duke University. "It's just ridiculous. We should not tolerate this, but for some reason we do."

While measles deaths have fallen by 60 percent worldwide in recent years, the virus remains a stubborn problem in rich countries like Japan, Switzerland and Britain.

In Britain, vaccination rates have dropped significantly since 1998, largely because of rumors of the vaccine's link to autism — which all credible medical evidence has rejected.

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases that exists. Unless nearly 95 percent of a population is vaccinated, the disease easily leaks across borders.

"As long as measles transmission is occurring anywhere, all countries are potentially at risk," said Dr. Melinda Wharton, deputy director of the CDC's national center for immunization and respiratory diseases.

In the United States, where vaccination rates hover around 90 percent, all measles outbreaks are traceable to imported cases. Last year, there were 55 confirmed cases in 16 states.

In Britain, where only about 80 percent of children are vaccinated, there were 736 cases last year in a nation with 20 percent of the U.S. population, though health authorities said this number was "provisional" and might be revised downward.

For Africa and Asia, which have the biggest measles problem, rich countries' inability to stamp out the disease may heighten their exposure to the virus.

"If you've got an industrialized country that fails to control measles, that rich country could re-infect a poor country that has made substantial efforts to eliminate the disease," said Dr. Peter Strebel, a measles expert at the World Health Organization.

"It is entirely possible for the U.K. to export a measles case to Nairobi, which might then spark an outbreak in Africa," Strebel said.

In Japan, a measles outbreak earlier this year that caused more than a thousand cases led to the closure of at least a hundred schools and universities in June. As of mid-July, Switzerland reported 483 cases across the country. Of those, 30 percent of the cases were in patients older than 16, including teenagers whose parents did not want them vaccinated.

Experts believe parents may be underestimating the impact of measles.

"People may think that because their children aren't malnourished or malaria-infected, that they don't need to get excited about measles," Katz said.

Last April, for the first time in more than a decade, a 13-year-old boy died in Britain of measles. And an outbreak in the Netherlands several years ago caused 3,292 cases. Of those hospitalized, 40 percent needed to be put on a ventilator, and three people died. In developed countries, the case fatality rate for measles is usually about one percent.

In Africa, measles, whose symptoms include high fever and rash, can be so serious that it has even been confused with the deadly Ebola virus. In malnourished people suffering from other diseases, the mortality rate can be as high as 30 percent.

While Western countries are in a better position to treat the disease, the complications from measles can be significant: about 20 percent of patients suffer complications such as ear infections that can lead to permanent hearing loss; about one in every thousand results in encephalitis.

Ironically, when parents begin refusing to have their children vaccinated, it is often evidence that the vaccination program has worked.

"Once the natural disease goes down to very low levels, what parents see is not the disease, but the occasional adverse event," Strebel said.

The measles vaccine can cause side effects including a fever or rash, and very rarely, encephalitis.

While deciding to forgo a vaccine may appear to be a personal decision, doctors warn that it can ultimately have international consequences.

"If nobody ever traveled, it would not be a problem," said Dr. Joanne Langley, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Canada's Dalhousie University. But in today's interconnected community, an infectious disease in one country can quickly skip across the globe within hours.

"When parents vaccinate their child, it is not only their child they're protecting," Langley said. "There are children all over the world that will benefit."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/03/europe/EU-MED-Britain-Exporting-Measles.php

 

[Niko]

Re: UK: update on measles

Measles outbreak scare


<!-- end headline or Pic Headline --> By ONLINE REPORTER
August 30, 2007

COMMENT ON THIS STORY



PARENTS were urged today to give their children the MMR jab following a surge in cases of measles. Figures show there were 480 cases so far this year compared with 756 during the whole of 2006 - the highest on record.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the number of cases were higher than expected for this time of year.

There were 136 cases up until June 10 this year, but the HPA said confirmed cases had more than trebled to 480 just over 11 weeks later.
Health experts urged parents to get their children vaccinated against the disease, which can be life-threatening.

Dr Mary Ramsay, a consultant epidemiologist at the HPA, said: ?Over the summer holidays we have seen more cases of measles being reported than we would normally expect.

?This means it is crucial that children are fully immunised with two doses of MMR before they return to school.

?Now is the time parents will be buying their children a new school uniform to prepare for the school year ahead, but being prepared to avoid infection is even more important.

?Parents should think about adding the MMR vaccine to their back to school 'to-do' list.?

Figures for confirmed cases up to 24 August 2007 show there were 465 cases in England, 10 in Wales and five in Scotland. There were no cases in Northern Ireland.

London had the most number of measles cases with 155.

In the East of England 134 people came down with the illness while the South East saw 69 cases.


Areas least affected were Wales with 10 cases followed by Scotland with five and the North East with just one.

Children aged one to four years old were most susceptible to contracting measles followed by five to nine-year-olds.


<table class="bodytable" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="96%"> <tbody> <tr> <th colspan="2">

Confirmed cases of measles by age and region for 2006​

</th> <th width="53"> </th> <th width="87"> </th> <th width="70"> </th> <th width="65"> </th> <th width="64"> </th> <th width="62"> </th> <th width="55"> </th> <th width="60"> </th> <th width="51"> </th> <th width="39"> </th> <th width="62"> </th></tr> <tr> <th width="72">

Age group​

</th> <th width="55">

North East​

</th> <th>

North West​

</th> <th>

Yorkshire & Humberside​

</th> <th>

East Midlands​

</th> <th>

West​

Midlands​

</th> <th>

East of England​

</th> <th>

London​

</th> <th>

South East​

</th> <th>

South West​

</th> <th>

Wales​

</th> <th>

NK*​

</th> <th>

Total​

</th></tr> <tr> <td> 1y</td> <td> </td> <td>

5​

</td> <td>

6​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

11​

</td> <td>

8​

</td> <td>

23​

</td> <td>

14​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

76​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

1-4y​

</td> <td>

5​

</td> <td>

16​

</td> <td>

19​

</td> <td>

7​

</td> <td>

11​

</td> <td>

28​

</td> <td>

92​

</td> <td>

56​

</td> <td>

7​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

243​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

5-9y​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

7​

</td> <td>

5​

</td> <td>

8​

</td> <td>

21​

</td> <td>

55​

</td> <td>

42​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

145​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

10-14y​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

9​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

27​

</td> <td>

16​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

68​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

15-19y​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

8​

</td> <td>

14​

</td> <td>

25​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

60​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

20-24y​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

5​

</td> <td>

14​

</td> <td>

9​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

37​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

25-29y​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

15​

</td> <td>

9​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

35​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

30-34y​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

17​

</td> <td>

11​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

34​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

>=35​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

3​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

7​

</td> <td>

12​

</td> <td>

9​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

34​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

NK​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

1​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

2​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

4​

</td></tr> <tr> <td>

Total​

</td> <td>

11​

</td> <td>

42​

</td> <td>

47​

</td> <td>

28​

</td> <td>

42​

</td> <td>

84​

</td> <td>

271​

</td> <td>

191​

</td> <td>

16​

</td> <td>

4​

</td> <td>

0​

</td> <td>

736​

</td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="4">

*NK - not known​

Laboratory reports & Saliva IgM positives

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007400478,00.html

​

</td></tr></tbody></table>