Posted on 02/16/2008 10:04:25 AM PST by jeannineinsd
Health officials await results for 12th child
By Cheryl Clark UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 16, 2008
Five more children in San Diego have tested positive for measles, bringing to 11 the total number of patients in a monthlong outbreak that has spread to schools, grocery stores, the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Hawaii, county officials said yesterday.
Public health experts are awaiting test results for a 12th child. Two other youngsters have developed symptoms of measles, but county officials have not discovered a link between them and the current outbreak.
One of the newly confirmed patients is an 8-year-old who may have spread the measles virus during a visit to Whole Foods Market in Hillcrest that started at 5 p.m. and lasted about an hour Jan. 29.
Two days later, the child attended “Corteo,” a performance by the group Cirque du Soleil, at the fairgrounds. He or she may have infected spectators and employees at the 4 and 8 p.m. shows.
The child also went to Trader Joe's in Hillcrest between 1 and 2 p.m. Feb. 3.
“It is extremely important that people, particularly children . . . are aware that they may have been exposed to measles,” said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer. The potentially fatal and highly contagious disease takes several weeks to run its course.
Wooten said there's no longer an infection risk at the fairgrounds and two supermarkets because the measles virus can't survive for more than two hours after it is expelled by a cough or sneeze.
The measles outbreak is San Diego County's first since 1991. It began when a 7-year-old patient returned from Switzerland on Jan. 15 with what would later be confirmed as measles. He or she infected two siblings and at least four classmates. The 8-year-old patient identified yesterday is a classmate of the 7-year-old.
On Jan. 25, the 7-year-old's parents took the youngster to the Children's Clinic of La Jolla. The child may have coughed and sneezed in the office, thus infecting four other children.
Those four patients returned to the clinic between Feb. 5 and 8, possibly spreading the virus to 60 other children.
All of the 11 confirmed patients, from 10 months to 9 years old, were not vaccinated either because they were younger than 1 – the minimum age for measles inoculation – or because their parents objected to having them vaccinated, county officials said.
School leaders, health officials and physicians say they hope the outbreak will persuade parents to have their children inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella. They said the vaccine is safe.
However, a growing number of parents are exercising their right under California law to decline vaccination for their children. They fear that vaccines may be linked to autism.
Measles was widespread in the United States before a vaccine was developed in the early 1960s. At that time, many parents felt relieved when their children got measles because the infection meant the youngsters would be immunized for the rest of their lives.
Today, non-immunization rates throughout San Diego County average 1.6 percent in preschool students and 2.5 percent in kindergartners, Wooten said.
As the outbreak continues to unfold, health officials in San Diego and Hawaii are trying to track down the thousands of individuals potentially exposed to measles.
Infection experts from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health Services are working with more than 30 of San Diego County's employees.
These health officials are seeking prospective patients linked to the San Diego Cooperative Charter School in Linda Vista; Children's Clinic of La Jolla in Bird Rock; School of the Madeleine and the Alcott Elementary School Infant & Toddler Development Program, both in Clairemont; Baldwin Academy and Murray Callan Swim School, both in Pacific Beach; the fairgrounds; and the two grocery stores in Hillcrest.
Hawaiian health officials are contacting the roughly 250 passengers who may have been exposed to measles from an infected child aboard Hawaiian Airlines Flight 15, which left Lindbergh Field on Feb. 9. Also potentially affected are people who were at the airport's Terminal 2, Gate 41 between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that day.
Measles causes a high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes. A rash usually follows.
In the United States, measles can be fatal in up to three per 1,000 children who contract it. The death rates are higher in developing countries.
Children are more at risk of suffering complications, including pneumonia and swelling of the brain, than senior citizens. Most adults have been immunized by the measles vaccine or by getting measles when they were young.
San Diego is on the border with Mexico, and there are a large number of immigrants here. The first suspicion might be the outbreak is among immigrants and poorer people. It is not. The outbreak is taking place among the well to do. A child on a flight from Switzerland, another child on a flight to Hawaii, other children shopping at Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods.
A contagious disease is just that, a contagious disease. If you catch it, you catch it. A parent's comfortable lifestyle can't really protect children. When the parents made the decision not to immunize, I'm sure they really didn't think their children would become ill with the measles.
Earlier thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1969480/posts
Illegals are spreading diseases in the U.S. and there is nothing we can do about it. If anyone tries to take action they will be accused of denying them their rights.
Uhhhh,,,
“ The first suspicion might be the outbreak is among immigrants and poorer people. It is not. The outbreak is taking place among the well to do. A child on a flight from Switzerland, another child on a flight to Hawaii, other children shopping at Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods.”
Still, I don't think that eleven cases in all of San Diego merits such nationwide attention.
Look at the itinerary of that 8 year old. That's not an immigrant child; it's a child of privilege, whose Mother has likely bought into the 'vaccines cause autism' nonsense, and a holistic lifestyle. There is absolutely NO PROOF that autism is caused by vaccines, but that flame has been fanned by Don Imus and others and gotten tons of press.
The media is claiming that more kids are getting autism, and there are folks willing to speciously make the connection between that condition and vaccinations. The truth is that it's likely kids always had some forms of autism, but they were never diagnosed as such. Many of today's cases of autism are not the profound kind that most folks associate with that description, but more are in the form of behavioral differences; shyness, difficulty dealing with other people, etc.
Vaccines can cause other damage besides autism.
No question about that, measles, mumps, and chicken pox would empty the class rooms when I was a kid. I don’t remember anyone dieing or having any lasting effect, normal kid thing in the ‘50s.
I wonder about this factoid. I grew up in a town of about 10,000 people in the 1960s. As far as I know, every kid had measles, and nobody ever suffered any serious aftereffects.
You don’t remember because it didn’t make the news. It didn’t make the news becaue it was the normal and expected thing.
Three per 1000. Did either of you know 330 kids?
And, of course, that’s statistical, not a guarantee that, even if you did know that many, there would have been a death in that group.
When people discovered that if you pooped in the water supply you got cholera, not something you want to get. They cleaned up the water people lost childhood immunity to polio and it became nasty for one that contracted it in adulthood, First Dictator FDR for example, hey this is a political site. There is a Quid Pro in the immunization program, A. You won't get the illness, B. If you do get it, and no shots, the odds of you getting your 18 sq feet of ground is greater. In my own opinion is that the old was are best, get when you are young survive and live to be an old fart like me.
The point of this is remember the poor Indians, measles killed them because of NO exposure. The up side to this is that Bubba had the mumps and is unable to breed.
Measles causes birth defects in unborn children if their mothers get it.
Mumps can make boys sterile.
Of my first cousins (Male) over 55 we have 38 kids, we all had the mumps, with a high of 8 and a low of 2, I don't think that to many blanks were shot.
The problem lies in getting measles as an adult, key word adult, why do you get measles as an adult, when it is threatening, no exposure as a child, Occam's Razor.
I don't advocate not getting shot up but look what happened to the poor Aztec Cannibals, when civilization falls and you are exposed to a new disease vector, measles.
I lived in LA until I was 9, had the measles and everyone I knew had the measles, no one died from it. We also had the mumps, whooping cough and chicken pocks and still, no one died. Just because these children are not illegals(not immigrants, immigrants are legal)does not mean they didn’t catch them from illegals. Many poor people won’t take their children to doctors for things like measles, so it is pretty difficult to say where these children contracted the measles. The odds are these kids will be fine with no lasting effects. People have sure gotten soft since the 50s, I can say that much, bunch of wimps, even here on FR.
It is not the 11 cases but the several hundred people they have been around and could also get the measles.
Those stores mentioned are in my neighborhood
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