Measles Mania

This article addresses the issue of serious diseases being spread in the confined situation of an airplane that was previously undiagnosed. This scare has occurred many many times through various situations, and each time it is a cause for much panic all across news sources and a large cascade of events occurs from our public health sector. In this specific case that occurred on February 22nd, this last Tuesday, a woman with the measles traveled through three different airports. She made several stops all the way from Europe and finally ending in New Mexico where she was diagnosed with measles. Measles is a viral disease that is highly contagious, and symptoms are characterized with a fever initially, and so patients that were five rows in front of or behind the infected woman were called by the CDC and asked to simply watch themselves for if they begin developing a fever. People that were also taken into special consideration on the flight are babies, small children, or individuals that have a medical history of conditions where their immune system might be compromised.

An interesting part of this article was the ways in which public health departments deal with this problem. In a separate case of the same nature, a woman who was 24 years old who was traveling from France to Boston developed measles and was diagnosed in Boston. An interesting fact that I did not know was that there is actually a small window of time in which people that had not been previously vaccinated can get vaccinated after exposure to the pathogen and have the vaccine still work effectively. Going on this principle, Boston actually held a free clinic for measles vaccinations on Friday. It was also identified by CDC spokesman Tom Skinner that most of the measles cases that present in the US are imported in from abroad, in situations such as this at the airports.

This is a beneficial article for all of us because these type of situations are the difficult parts of public health but some of the most crucial when it comes to emergency response, and this is a gap in society that public health can fill with expertise. I thought the most interesting bit of information is the window that you can still receive a vaccination in and have it be effective towards the pathogen that an individual is exposed to. It makes me really glad to see that Boston was able to host the clinic free as well, because I feel like if the participants had to pay for their care many would not have gotten it, only increasing the prevalence of the disease that was carried in. This is really good practice and I am glad that public health succeeding is highlighted here.