Measles Is A Killer: It Took 145,000 Lives Worldwide Last Year

[hack89]

The number of measles cases from the outbreak linked to Disneyland has now risen to at least 98. But measles remains extremely rare in the United States.

The rest of the world hasn't been so fortunate. Last year roughly 250,000 people came down with measles; more than half of them died.

"The measles virus is probably the most contagious infectious disease known to mankind," says Stephen Cochi, a senior adviser with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global immunization division.

"The children under 5 are very vulnerable to measles," Robinson says. They're the primary target of vaccination campaigns. "It takes just a few days to get them vaccinated but it also takes a very short time for the virus to kill them."

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/30/382716075/measles-is-a-killer-it-took-145-000-lives-worldwide-last-year

[ffr]

1. That's all? Net procreation can outstrip that in two days!

Put that into perspective.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

[hack89]

2. Same could be said for gun violence or drunk driving

why worry about all those deaths a year if net procreation will replace them.

[shraby]

3. Do you realize what you just posted? Maybe you are on the wrong site.

EVERY life is precious. You don't count their worth in ability to be replaced.

[MineralMan]

4. Doesn't help those who died, though, does it?

Callous and insensitive, at a minimum.

[KamaAina]

5. I do not believe I just read that

[Humanist_Activist]

6. You know, one person who died is one person too many, you just laid bare the immorality...

of the anti-vaccine, anti-science, anti-medicine position.

We need to reduce risks as much as possible, worldwide, we need to solve issues with pollution, lack of access to medicine, clean water, food, etc. for everyone. We are not going to solve this by attacking science, evidence-based medicine, vaccines, etc. Those are what will SOLVE these problems, NOT browsing the organic aisle in the local grocery store, or going to the nearest alternative "medicine" store to by their latest snake oil. No, what will solve these issues are evidence based reasoning in economics and politics, and support of science to reduce disease and clean up the environment.

[uppityperson]

7. Seriously? Who cares about anyone dying because there are more being born?

[Codeine]

9. Jerk. nt

[ffr]

10. To all of the above

First off, I'm not the bad guy. I was merely pointing out some sobering facts about our inability to understand Exponential Function. Google it if you're unfamiliar. Someone put a really good set of videos, as series of eight, of Albert Bartlett discussing the concept. You'll like it, trust me.

Maybe you've heard about this mathematical concept or maybe you haven't, but if you clicked the Worldmeters link, looked at the human population clock, AND did some math on time and population, your senses might get shocked.

If you're the type of person that thinks in the scale of the BC/AD Gregorian calender, understands that this is the year 2015 AD and that all of the recorded human history can be summed up over thousands of years, you might be a little disheartened to realize that something has got to give here soon.

Call me names, make be the bad guy, whatever, but you're going to have to deal with the reality of the numbers eventually.

[The2ndWheel]

8. It's not difficult to see how we got to 7+ billion people, and counting

Short term always takes precedence over the long term. It has to. That's how life works.

In the long term, educating women across the world and giving them access to more opportunities is the #1 option. However, until that goal is reached everywhere, everyone who is alive needs to stay alive, because as was said, every life is precious(every human life anyway).

To do either one of those though, educate women, keep everyone alive, will require more resources. More resources for us means less room for non-human life. Which is fine, except then we want it both ways. We feel sad about killing off some of the other species on the planet, but we can't save all of them and progress as a species ourselves.

The main reason that humans are changing the climate is because we don't die enough. I know, I know, I should kill myself. That's not what I'm talking about, as I'm not saying we should do this or that. All I'm saying is that it's a fact that the human animal does not die enough, in relation to how other forms of life do. We compound that by doing so much while we're alive. Then we compound that by, as someone else said in this thread, taking more and more of the risk out of life.

Our being conscious of death has gotten us to this point. Both good and bad. You can see that in the responses. More people are still being born than are dying, but there are still too many deaths. Because you can't just let people die. Short term always takes precedence over the long term, in every sphere of existence. That's why every solution leads to the next problem.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. And "The disease is rarely fatal in developed nations with modern health care systems..."

which IMHO means that we in countries with modern health systems should work to eradicate it in countries without same rather than expending so much energy focusing on the handful of crackpots in our own nations.


From an MMWR last year (bold emphases mine):

Measles — United States, January 1–May 23, 2014

June 6, 2014 / 63(22);496-499


Patients with reported measles cases this year have ranged in age from 2 weeks to 65 years; 18 (6%) were aged <12 months, 48 (17%) were aged 1–4 years, 71 (25%) were aged 5–19 years, and 151 (52%) were aged =20 years. Forty-three (15%) were hospitalized, and complications have included pneumonia (five patients), hepatitis (one), pancytopenia (one), and thrombocytopenia (one). No cases of encephalitis and no deaths have been reported.

Measles cases have been reported from 18 states and New York City. Most cases were reported from Ohio (138), California (60), and New York City (26). Fifteen outbreaks have accounted for 227 (79%) of the 288 cases. The median outbreak size has been five cases (range: 3–138 cases). There is an ongoing outbreak involving 138 cases, occurring primarily among unvaccinated Amish communities in Ohio.

Of the 288 cases, 280 (97%) were associated with importations from at least 18 countries. The source of measles acquisition could not be identified for eight (3%) cases. Forty-five direct importations (40 U.S. residents returning from abroad and five foreign visitors) have been reported. Almost half (22 [49%]) of these importations were travelers returning from the Philippines, where a large outbreak has been occurring since October 2013. Imported cases were also associated with travel from other countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region (seven cases), as well as countries in the WHO South-East Asia (eight), European (four), Americas (three), and Eastern Mediterranean (one) regions. Measles genotype information was obtained from 103 (36%) of the 288 measles cases. Four measles virus genotypes were identified: B3 (67 cases), D9 (23), D8 (12), and H1 (one) (Table).

Most of the 288 measles cases reported this year have been in persons who were unvaccinated (200 [69%]) or who had an unknown vaccination status (58 [20%]); 30 (10%) were in persons who were vaccinated. Among the 195 U.S. residents who had measles and were unvaccinated, 165 (85%) declined vaccination because of religious, philosophical, or personal objections, 11 (6%) were missed opportunities for vaccination, and10 (5%) were too young to receive vaccination

Smallpox was eradicated because of a global effort. Perhaps it's time for something similar for measles.