Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- The outbreak occurred in an area described by one doctor as a ‘hotspot’ for outbreaks due to its extraordinarily high number of unvaccinated children.
- The parents of children in Washington, Oregon and 16 other states are allowed to apply for personal or philosophical exemptions from the vaccines required to get into public school.
- The World Health Organization calls the propensity not to get vaccinated ‘vaccine hesitancy’, and the organization said one of its goals over the next 5 years is to decrease this hesitancy.
A measles outbreak has spread across an anti-vaccination “hotspot” in Clark County, Wash., causing officials to declare a public health emergency.
The outbreak has infected at least 23 people so far, including 18 children between the ages of 1 and 10, according to a government release. At least one person has been hospitalized. Officials are prohibiting students and staff without documented immunity from entering schools identified as possible exposure sites.
The outbreak occurred about 25 miles north of Portland, Ore., in Clark County, an area known for its low rate of immunization. In an interview with The Washington Post, Peter J. Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, described the county as a “hotspot” for outbreaks.
“This is something I’ve predicted for a while now,” he said about the outbreak. “It’s really awful and really tragic and totally preventable.”
About 8 percent of children in Clark County were exempt from getting the vaccinations required to enter public school kindergarten in the 2017-2018 school year. The majority of…
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