Earlier this week, the Maricopa Department of Public Health (MCDPH) identified a confirmed exposure of measles from an international traveler in Maricopa County. While no additional cases have been identified so far, measles is highly contagious. If you lack immunity and are exposed to the measles virus, you have about a 90 percent chance of [...]
So, your little one starts kindergarten soon. How exciting! You still have a few months before the school year starts, so now’s the time to make sure students-to-be have the vaccines needed to stay safe as they head into a new chapter of life. Much attention is rightly paid to COVID-19 these days, but we [...]
In the midst of nationwide outbreaks of measles, and increases in Arizona cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, Arizona’s vaccine coverage rates continue to decrease. This places more Arizona children, families, and communities at risk for vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks. For the third year in a row, non-medical exemption rates--the percentage of students exempt from one or more [...]
Office of Infectious Disease Services recently published a report in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) describing the 2016 measles outbreak associated with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in our state. This week marks the one year anniversary of the public health response to the outbreak. ADHS worked with Pinal County [...]
A 4th grader in Gilbert was diagnosed with the mumps last week. Had all the staff and faculty in the school been previously vaccinated for the mumps at the school- it really would’ve been no big deal. But, it turns out that 19 kids at the school hadn’t been vaccinated for the mumps (mainly because [...]
An article published in the journal Lancet nearly 12 years ago set the public health world on fire. The article published by Wakefield and 12 other authors suggested that they had found a link between the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccine and autism and bowel disease. Since that time, a great deal of research has [...]
