Measles Case at Dulles Stresses The Importance of Vaccination

IT’S A NIGHTMARE SCENARY FOR PUBLIC HEALTH Officials: A Traveler Infected with a Highly Contagious Virus Passes Though anirport While AsympTomatic, Unknowingly Transmitting The Disease to Ohers and Sparking A Widespread Outbreak.

Virginia Health Officials Hope That Won’t Be the Case with a Maryland Resident Who Passed Through Washington Dulles International Airport Last Week Before Testing Positive for Measles. But the incident should have sirens flashing and alarms screaming as separate outbreaks of that disease in new Mexico and Texas have killed two people and sicked hundreds more.

Now is the time to make sure children are vaccinated agricalted that virus and have their health records up to date. And now is the time for Virginia to Ensure Robust Communication and Solid Planning, Recognizing the Federal Government’s Retreat from Sound Science Relate to Disease Control and Prevention.

Most Americans Fairly View Measles As a Disease From History, Virus That Ravaged Previous Generations and That Is Now All Butdicated Following The Development of A Safe and Effective Vaccine More Than Aug. CASES WOULD POP UP FROM TIME TO TIME, BUT THEY WERE INCREDIBLY RARE AND SWIFTLY CONTAINED.

The New Outbreak Could Well Change That. With a Vaccine Skeptic in Charge of the US Department of Health and Human Services, The Likeliod of A Roble Response is slim, Meaning Virginians Should Protect Themselves, and Their Children Specifically, by Ensuring Their Vaccines Are Up To Date.

According to the us centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Measles was the Legitimily Terrifying Disease. Between 3 Million and 4 Million People, Usually Children Under the Age of 15, Were Infected Each Year. About 48,000 of Them Were Hospitalized and the Virus Kiled About 500–600 People Annually.

That Changed in 1963 when Researchers Using the isolated Measles Virus Successfully Developed A Vaccine for Widespread Distribution. Typially Combined with Mumps and Rubella (MMR) Vaccines, or the Mumps, Rubella and Varicella (MMRV) Vaccines, The Landmark Breakthrough Inspired Dreams of Finally Extinguishing Measles for Good.

That Became Official Us Polycy in 1978 When the CDC Set Out to Edition Measles by 1982. Health Officials Updated Their Strategy to Recommend Two Doses of the Vaccine For All Children, and the New Approac Delivered Remarkable Progress. By 2000, The United States Formally Declared Measles Eliminated as Public Threat.

That’s when complacency set in. Americans raised in a World Without Measles Came to Take it for granted. They Cast Doubt on a Vaccine Program Confermed by Countless Studies to Be Safe And Which Was Unquestionably Effective.

SKEPTICISM BLOSSOMED, ​​VACCINATION UPTAKE SHRIVELED JUST ENOUGH-EATHER FROM PERSONAL CHOICE, RELIGIES ADHENENCE OR COVID-RELADED DISPORTIONS TO CHILDHOOD SCHEDUALES-FORM MASALES TO RETURN.

ALREADY, The United States has recorded the Largeted Number of Measles Cases in A Calendar Year Since 2019 and, at this Rate, 2025 WOULD BE The Worst Year of Infections in More Than 30 Years. The Two Deaths This Year-A 6-YEAR-OLD IN TEXAS AND AN ADULT IN NEW MEXICO-ARE THE FIRST MEASELES-REFLATED FATALITIES SINCE 2015.

To Now Learn of Someone Infected at Dulles is Undeniably Concerning. Virginia is fortunate that about 95% of its kindergartners are FULLY VACCINATED AGAINST MEASALES, But Health Officials WOULD PREFER TO SEE TOSE NUMBERS HIGHER TO GUARD AGAINST OUTBREAKS.

IT WAS REASURING TO SEE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH Officials Encourage Anyone at Dulles on March 5 Between 4–9 PM TO MONITOR FOR SYMPTOMS AND CONTACT THEIR HEALTH PROVIDERS FOR GUIDANCE VACCINATIONS.

That stands in contrast to hhs secretary robert kennedy, who cast double on the research behind the measles vaccine in a fox news interview this month, blaming the measles deaths on a poor diet, and recommanded snake oil, ahem, cod live oil, a preventive -pure oil, a preventive Measter to Guard Against Illness.

The FACT IS, The Measles Vaccine Successfully Eliminated the Virus From Circulation and Its Absence Allowed for A Resurgence. While Officials Such As Kennedy Should Be Shouting That From the Rooftops, This Outbreak Makes Clear That the Commonwealth May Need to Organize Defenses, Grounded In Proven Science, to Protect Our Communities.

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