Parents, are you ready for the new school year? Meeting teachers, organizing backpacks, and packing lunches are some of the many things you are prepared for, but what about your child’s vaccination status? As the first day of school approaches, take a quick second to review Arizona’s state mandated immunization requirements for children entering child [...]
It’s a busy time of year when kids are out of school, some businesses are closing up shop for the holidays, and people are taking some quality time to spend with friends and family. The last thing you need right now is a case of the flu. The tiredness, achiness, fever, and congestion [...]
You might remember from a few weeks ago that a single patient exposed over 1,000 Arizonans to measles. Because measles is highly infectious and 90% of unvaccinated contacts become infected, Public Health worked overtime to identify and interview suspected cases. Health care facilities were placed on heightened alert. The State Laboratory rushed testing of suspicious [...]
Like a hotshot team, a rapid response by public health is essential to stopping the spread of measles in unvaccinated persons… and disease detectives in Maricopa County are currently working to squash a measles outbreak right now. Last week a person with measles visited a restaurant, church and airport in Arizona, exposing over a thousand [...]
Flu season is here! Parts of the country (mostly in the south) have had more intense flu activity in the last few weeks, and 25 states reported widespread flu activity for the week ending December 28th. Meanwhile, in Arizona we are seeing an increase in the number of lab-confirmed flu cases reported to ADHS- but [...]
A study came out in Pediatrics last week that looked at how vaccine exemptions were related to a statewide outbreak of pertussis (also known as whooping cough) in California in 2010. As you might expect, the authors found that there were more whooping cough cases in areas with higher rates of vaccine exemptions. These findings were [...]
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has been increasing in Arizona and the rest of the nation for the last few years. Pertussis usually runs in a cycle, peaking every 3-5 years and then decreasing again. Symptoms include fits of cough, vomiting after the fits of cough, and a whooping sound during cough. Some complications include pneumonia, [...]
As I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago, more AZ parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids- and using “personal exemptions” when they enroll their kids in school. If the trend continues, we could jeopardize our immunization rates enough so that we'd see long gone diseases like measles and mumps return in [...]
Yesterday afternoon's weekly flu report shows that influenza is still circulating widely in AZ... with a steep increase in the last couple of weeks. The strain that’s circulating is mostly Type A - H3N2 which can be more severe than the 2009 H1N1, especially for seniors. There are plenty of B strains going around too. But you can still find [...]
Today is World Polio Day so I thought I’d throw together this post to give you an update on where we are in the global eradication effort. 2012 has been a good year so far- as the global public health system has made some real progress. This year we’re down to only 3 countries with [...]
