Should children be vaccinated for measles?

Measles is an infectious viral disease causing fever and a red rash on the skin, typically occurring in childhood. Vaccinations for measles has to a priority for every person. We never know where people travel to or who comes into the country who has been in contact or infected with measles. We have to worry about the children become sick with measles because they can become very sick and their futures could be in jeopardy.

 

This video explains to us that Measles is very contagious and that kids who have not been vaccinated can catch this virus easily. Measles is airbourne and can stay in an empty room for more than 2 hours. Last year alone, a Measles outbreak had infected more than 600 people in around 17 different states around the country, an outbreak that had started in California in the famous amusement park, Disneyland. Parents should be worried and have their children vaccinated because they never know who has made contact with the virus. This virus is very serious even though it kills 1 or 2 out of every 1000 people.

The parents who do not want to vaccinate their kids because of religious, medical or personal reasons should be careful because their is a bigger risk for them of catching the virus. Since the first site of people infected was in California, people who have not gotten their children vaccinated should be keeping a close eye on where their children go and who they are hanging around. Children who have gotten the vaccination still have a small chance of 3-5% of catching the virus. Two dozes of the vaccination can give you a 97% chance of not catching the virus. That percentage is high enough to help make sure that no one gets sick.

Families and everyone else should worry about getting vaccinated because this virus can spread quickly. There is a chance that people who watched the media deal with the Ebola outbreak could believe that the media went over the top with this outbreak, but it is a concerning matter and parents should make sure that their children are vaccinated.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/measles-outbreak-swells-121-cases-year-cdc/story?id=28830089

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/measles-outbreak-vaccine-questions_n_6648086.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/measles-vaccine-debate-hits-home-at-california-school-1423695333

 

 

 

Was it the right way to respond?

Ebola has been around for many years but recently there was an outbreak in Africa that resulted in one man being infected, who then flew to Dallas, Texas and became the first person in the United States to die due to this insane disease.  This outbreak was a matter of life or death for some people. The biggest issue was, “how many people in the United States would it infect?” That is what the United States and President Obama wanted to avoid.

“Here’s the bottom line. Patients can beat this disease. And we can beat this disease. But we have to stay vigilant. We have to work together at every level — federal, state and local. And we have to keep leading the global response, because the best way to stop this disease, the best way to keep Americans safe, is to stop it at its source — in West Africa.”

This statement comes from President Obama’s October 25th Weekly Address on the issue of the Ebola outbreak. The main issue was to secure the outbreak in Africa and to make sure that we were prepared enough in order to make sure no one became infected.

During the Ebola outbreak, the midterm elections were happening, so Congress was out of session so everyone in the administration acted together as one to make sure that everyone was prepared for the outbreak. They all came into agreement that the only way to protect from the outbreak was to make sure that the crisis with Ebola in Africa was contained. The administration at the start wanted a mandatory quarantine in the major cities where 94% of all flights from countries that were affected by Ebola  fly into but that could not be agreed upon. The best idea they came up with was  to have those people who were previously in those affected countries monitored in the privacy of their own homes and make sure that they were not spreading it to other people if they were infected.

From Greg Laden’s blog, he says that the government wanted to do a full intervention in order to come up with a vaccine in the majorly affected areas. The problem with this idea is that it could have taken up to 6 months for that process. He knew that they could not be a major scale outbreak in the U.S.A. He talks about the ways we as a country could stop the outbreak if it were ever to happen like stop all flights and the fact that people can have symptoms of the disease days after being exposed to someone who is infected. This process could be avoided with “self-monitoring” and making sure that people take care of themselves and realize where they are coming from.

All in all, I do like the way the U.S.A. responded to the Ebola Crisis. It was sad to see that citizens had to suffer and some actually pass away but it was good that not many people had been infected.