Naught Measles
Last fall I wrote about how contagious Ebola is compared to other diseases, using a mathematical calculation called R0 (R naught). R0 is a tool we use in epidemiology to estimate the average number of people one sick person will infect. The R0 for measles is off the charts. It has one of the highest R0 (from 12-18 compared to an [...]
Public Health Super Bowl Activities
The federal government considers the Super Bowl to be an “event of national significance.” A host of public safety and health activities are implemented during events of national significance. Our (ADHS) activities began with the Pro Bowl last weekend and finish after the Super Bowl on February 1. We have 3 primary functions: BioWatch and Suspicious Substance Testing, and Enhanced Public [...]
Additional Measles Cases Found this Week
Last week I wrote about the 5 measles cases that we had identified as part of the nationwide Disneyland outbreak. Four of the AZ cases were among an unvaccinated Pinal County family that had visited Disneyland. This week over 1000 contacts were identified among our now 7 measles cases. Here’s a quick summary: One of the kids from the original [...]
AZ Interventions to Improve Vaccination Rates
Arizona law requires kids to get certain vaccines in order to attend school unless a doctor signs a medical exemption form or a parent signs a religious or personal belief exemption form. There’s been an increasing number of parents who are signing personal belief exemption forms - putting herd mmunity at risk. Every year we examine our exemption rates…which gives [...]
Unvaccinated Kids Come in Clusters
Courtesy: Journal of Pediatrics Last week’s issue of the Journal Pediatrics sheds light on something that we see here in Arizona - that parental refusal and delay of childhood vaccines is clustered in certain communities. The study was done in California and found that the percentage of kids who were under-immunized increased from 8% in 2002–2005 to 13% in [...]
Vaccines & the Social Contract
At the core - vaccines are really about community protection. Our public health system depends on a solid network of providers that are available to vaccinate kids for all of the nasty infectious diseases that have plagued humanity for millennium. It’s not just access to care and a solid network of providers that vaccinate that are important - we also [...]