Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/24/cdc-now-695-measles-cases-in.html
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Posted elsewhere, but will repost here:
Your vote matters, now more than ever.
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My son asked what the first symptoms of measles are this afternoon. I responded with “you are fully vaccinated against everything we could vaccinate you for.” He was still a bit overly concerned. 
Unless you have a serious medical reason for not doing so, get your booster shots, adults.
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Now is the time to invest in measles futures.
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Anti-vaxx = blood sacrifices to Mammon
GOP is the party of Mammon
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How are the anti-vaxxers justifying the results of their monstrously stupid beliefs? Ignoring it? “Fake news”? Government conspiracy to make them look bad? Children-hating Dungeons and Dragons players casting evil Satanic spells??
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‘A price worth paying’, is my guess. As long as it’s other people’s kids dying (and even occasionally, crazily, when it’s not).
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Wait, since 2000? Why was it so high in 2000?
You should really watch the rest of this. Hank zones out because he’s had too much at once. Jim is freaking because now he thinks he’s made him autistic. No. He just got too much at once. He was soon perfectly fine. Jim, it turned out, actually IS autistic.
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Virginia Department of Health (vdh@public.govdelivery.com)To:you Details
VA_Seal
COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA
Department of Health
Hepatitis A
April 25, 2019
Dear Colleague:
Between January 1, 2019 and April 19, 2019, Virginia has reported 44 cases of hepatitis A (HAV), a 132% increase compared to the same time period in 2018. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated a Health Alert Network (HAN) Advisory indicating that multiple states across the country have experienced HAV outbreaks, primarily among people who use drugs and people experiencing homelessness. Since these outbreaks were first identified in 2016, more than 15,000 cases and 8,500 hospitalizations (57% of cases) have been reported in the United States. In Virginia, the increase in HAV cases indicates that the Commonwealth is now experiencing the effects of this nationwide outbreak, and action is needed to prevent the continued spread of hepatitis A.
Virginia’s local health districts are working with community partners to increase vaccination efforts, with specific focus on persons at high risk of acquiring HAV infection or developing serious complications from infection. CDC has reported that one dose of single-antigen hepatitis A vaccine has been shown to control HAV outbreaks.
To help control the spread of hepatitis A, please consider taking the following actions:
- Assess your patients’ hepatitis A vaccination status. Offer vaccine to those not adequately immunized, including the following high risk groups:
• People who use drugs (injection or non-injection)
• People experiencing homelessness
• Men who have sex with men (MSM)
• People who are, or were recently, incarcerated
• People with chronic liver disease, including cirrhosis, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C
- If you do not stock the hepatitis A vaccine, refer your patients to a local pharmacy or local health department.
- Enter vaccine administered in Virginia Immunization Information System (VIIS), the statewide immunization registry.
- Immediately report cases of HAV to your local health department, preferably by telephone. This ensures that timely public health prevention and control steps can be initiated, including post-exposure prophylaxis (hepatitis A vaccine or IG) for individuals with direct, recent (within 2 weeks) contact with a case.
We have established an HAV webpage on the Virginia Department of Health website with resources for you and your patients. If you have any additional questions, please contact the Division of Immunization at 804-864-8055 or your local health department. Thank you for your partnership in preventing the spread of HAV in Virginia.
Sincerely,
M. Norman Oliver, MD, MA
State Health CommissionerA version of this letter is available on the VDH Resources for Health Care Professionals web page.
This is another vaccine preventable illness now on a stark upswing. This one is more associated with socioeconomic deprivation and drug abuse than any of the others, but is still preventable.
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It’s ambiguous. Read it as “Measles was declared eradicated in the US in 2000, although there have been cases reported each year. This year’s total of 695 is the greatest since said declaration of eradication”.
The only significant table of new measles cases per year I could find offhand is here and although they don’t give their sources without registration, spot checks imply that they’re the CDC figures. In 2000 there were 86 measles cases, so the US actually has the highest total since 1994’s 963 cases (and it’s only goddamn April).
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I believe this is a question of definitions. In 2000 measles was declared “eradicated” in the US as there were no documented cases of domestic transmission. There have always been sporadic cases from travelers but with adequate herd immunity there was no domestic spread. Needless to say, that is not the case anymore.
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This raises the “if you have been vaccinated you have nothing to worry about” story to the fore again. Please get your boosters if needed.
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We’re #1!! Yay! 
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