Adult Vaccinations

Measles, which had been eliminated from the contagious disease landscape, is no longer under firm control. As health agencies try to quash outbreaks in California and other states, many people are considering the necessary precautions to avoid catching the potentially dangerous illness. Outbreaks of measles spread rapidly when infected people cough or sneeze, sending the virus into the air that other people breathe. Stanislaus County health officials issued a measles warning Thursday after an infected adult attended a basketball showcase, featuring the area’s top high school players, last week at Turlock High School. About 300 tickets were sold for the event. FLASH SALE! Unlimited digital access for $3.99 per month Don't miss this great deal. Offer ends on March 31st! #ReadLocal Health officials said it’s possible other spectators were exposed and they should be watching for symptoms. The county Health Services Agency on Friday had nothing new to report on the...

ADVERTISEMENT Sign Up for Our free email newsletters West Virginia is not known for its public heath advances. Since 2016, a raging opioid epidemic has consumed the state, which consistently ranks in the bottom 10 for overall health outcomes. Its residents face some of the highest rates of obesity , cigarette use , and mortality in the country. But when it comes to immunization policy, West Virginia is the gold standard. How did this happen? The state legislature has maintained strong vaccination policies for decades, resisting political pressure to expand exemptions to vaccination mandates. It's the only state that has never had non-medical exemptions, and, as a result, West Virginia has not experienced a measles outbreak in 25 years. In recent decades, a few states (most recently, California) have made similar advances on vaccine policy, often in response to public heath crises. Washington State's Senate voted last week to advance a measure removing non-medic...

The number of Hawaii students requesting exemptions from mandated immunizations is growing, according to state health officials. To attend school, students are required to receive DTaP (diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis), polio, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), hepatitis B, Hib and Varicella (chickenpox) immunizations, and must meet minimum age and interval requirements between vaccine doses. ADVERTISING Children, however, can be exempt from immunization requirements for medical or religious reasons if the appropriate documentation is given to the school. The DOH recently released the rates of immunization exemptions at Hawaii schools for the 2018-19 academic year, which schools are required to report to the state each year. Throughout Hawaii, the number of requests for religious exemptions “have been slowly increasing upwards,” said Department of Health Immunization Branch Chief Ronald Balajadia. Having more unvaccinated individuals in a community brings with it the potential...

About a hundred people marched Saturday through downtown Bend to oppose a state bill that would bar children from public and private schools if they are not immunized. If approved, House Bill 3063 — co-sponsored by Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend — would only allow students to opt out of vaccines if they have a doctor’s note acceptable to local heath authorities that exempts them for medical reasons. Participants at Bend’s Educational Rally for Medical Freedom, which started at Drake Park and made its way through downtown Bend, worry the bill would give the government too much power over a personal decision to vaccinate children. People held signs at the march with slogans such as “My body, my choice,” “When there is a risk, there must be a choice” and “Parents should call the shots.” Bend resident Joshua Reynvaan came to the march with his wife, Mandy, and their five children, ages 8 years old to 6 months old. Reynvaan said his main concern is how the bill limits options for families ...

In my last column I wrote about some possible sleeper issues for the 2020 election campaigns. One of them was the requirement children need to be vaccinated to attend schools. State legislatures consider vaccinations Because state legislatures are now in session across the country many are now considering bills to tighten up, or instead loosen the exemptions currently granted from being required to have these vaccinations — usually an MMR vaccine (MMR stands for mumps, measles, and Rubella), Dtap (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), polio, and chicken pox. These were once very common children diseases, killing thousands and harming many more. Almost every child got one or more of them. I got infected by mumps, measles, Rubella, and chicken pox. I was proud to be a “polio pioneer,” a test subject for the then new polio vaccine. Despite the mortality and morbidity from these now easy-to-prevent infections, most children back in that day survived the MMR diseases with no detectable harm...

HARRISBURG — Parents would no longer have the right to refuse to get their children vaccinated for religious or philosophical reason under a state Senate proposal. "The law requires us all to get vaccinated to attend school because that’s the only way we can protect the health of students who are medically unable to get a vaccination,” said state Sen. Daylin Leach. “Vaccines are safe. The recent outbreak of mumps and measles reminds us that vaccines are absolutely essential to public health.” Leach, a Democrat from Montgomery County, made the proposal Thursday as public health officials have been scrambling to deal with measles and mumps outbreaks across the country — including one at Temple University in Philadelphia that had affected 106 people, as of Wednesday, according to the university. Only three states — California, Mississippi and West Virginia — don’t allow parents to cite religious objections to get out of immunizing their children, ac...

Area health officials are encouraging individuals to get the hepatitis A vaccine due to an outbreak of the disease across the state (please see box). "Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver infection caused by the hepatitis A virus," reports Holley Rose, Ripley County Health Department administrator. It "is passed in the stool, and people become infected by having contact with the stool of an infected person. For this reason, the virus is more easily spread in areas where there are poor sanitary conditions or where good personal hygiene is not common. Casual contact, as in the usual workplace or school setting, does not spread the virus." "You see it more in food service settings," RCHD health officer Dr. David Welsh, Batesville, points out. "You can quickly spread it to others, even before you know you're sick .... In the last year, it has gotten more attention as people are more mobile." Rose reveals the disease's symptoms: diarr...

FRIDAY, March 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Though flu season has probably peaked, beware: Influenza is still widespread in much of the United States, federal health officials said Friday. "This week activity decreased a little bit, but flu is going to be around for a while," said Lynnette Brammer, from the domestic influenza surveillance team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Making matters worse, the predominant strain is influenza A H3N2, the most serious type, and it's putting older Americans in the hospital, she said. How much longer flu season will last depends on how long the H3N2 virus sticks around, and if influenza B viruses start to spread, Brammer said. Right now, B viruses are causing only a small percentage of flu cases. Though this year's flu hasn't been as bad as last year's, it's still been a severe season, not the mild one health officials had hoped for. It will still be weeks before flu drops to levels needed f...

A late-season wave of influenza has spread across the Inland Northwest and spiked hospitalizations during the past month. The virus is a different strain than that which affected people earlier this flu season. Hospitalizations and deaths from the flu in Spokane County had been significantly lower than last year, but March numbers jumped to the highest of any March in the last five years, according to the Spokane Regional Health District. This year, 420 people in Spokane received flu treatment in a hospital, according to the health district’s data released this week. More than 100 of them have been in the last month, which is higher than this time last year. The highest number of hospitalizations in the last few years have happened in January and flu hospitalizations usually decrease by spring. Dr. Bob Lutz, the county’s health officer, said this year’s flu vaccine was effective in preventing the H1N1 influenza strain that was prevalent early in the flu season. But recently the H3...

SEATTLE — From foreign-assisted programs to government-funded projects in the health sector, vaccination has been one of the most effective and powerful health interventions with notable outcomes around the world. Not only do they reduce diseases and mortality, but they also leave a positive impact on a country’s economy in the long run. Given the effectiveness of vaccines in health sector interventions, global emphasis on vaccination has increased over the years, rightfully so. WHO’s 2019-2023 Plan The World Health Organization’s (WHO) new five-year plan from 2019 to 2023 is aiming for an ambitious target of triple billion in terms of ensuring increased universal health care coverage, protection from health emergencies and better health and wellbeing, with an increment of one billion more people in each of these sectors. In order to do so, it has recognized 10 priority areas to focus on, one of which is vaccination. WHO will also increase its coverage of the HPV vaccine worldwide ...

Free head and neck cancer screenings are offered at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich last year. Free head and neck cancer screenings are offered at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich last year. Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Image 1 of 1 Free head and neck cancer screenings are offered at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich last year. Free head and neck cancer screenings are offered at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich last year. Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media Op-Ed: Support science and prevent cancer Back to Gallery This month, I testified before the state Legislature’s Public Health Committee. I talked about cancer, vaccines and science. I testified in support of HB 7199, a bill to increase Connecticut’s rates of immunization against human papilloma virus, or HPV. I sat behind a microphone, facing a wide circ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Measles outbreak highlights vaccination debate    CNBC Ed Day, Rockland County New York executive, and Dr. John Torres, NBC News Medical Correspondent, join 'The Exchange' to discuss measles making a ... https://ift.tt/2WBSgpL

Measles, once thought to be eliminated in the United States, continues to worry public health officials as the number of infected individuals swells past 300. The most recent US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics report 314 individual confirmed cases of measles in 15 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington). Outbreaks are ongoing in New York City, Washington, Texas, Illinois, California, and in Rockland County, New York, which declared a state of emergency earlier this week mandating that anyone under age 18 who is unvaccinated is prohibited from public places for 30 days or until they receive the MMR vaccine, according to ABC7NY.com. To shed light on the current measles outbreaks, Contagion® is launching an Insights video series featuring the perspectives of 2 medical experts, 1 with a background in pediatric medicine and 1 public he...

Please enable Javascript to watch this video LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. -- The immunization debate is heating up in the Commonwealth with measles and mumps outbreaks not far from our area. A Pennsylvania state senator is proposing legislation that would eliminate certain exemptions that allow a parent to refuse a vaccination for their child. Some lawmakers aren't on board. “My kids have been vaccinated. All my grandkids have been vaccinated. Do I believe in it? Yes," said Laurie Agnone of Etters. “I really think they should. It’s been proven over the years it’s working. It’s protecting the kids," said Luana Taylor, whose daughter is vaccinated. Currently, there is a mumps outbreak at Temple University with more than 100 students reportedly infected with the disease. There are more than 150 confirmed cases of the measles in Rockland County, New York. Senator Daylin Leach wants to eliminate religious and philosophical exemptions that allow a parent to refuse vaccina...

In my last column I wrote about some possible sleeper issues for the 2020 election campaigns. One of them was the requirement children need to be vaccinated to attend schools. State legislatures consider vaccinations Because state legislatures are now in session across the country many are now considering bills to tighten up, or instead loosen the exemptions currently granted from being required to have these vaccinations — usually an MMR vaccine (MMR stands for mumps, measles, and Rubella), Dtap (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), polio, and chicken pox. These were once very common children diseases, killing thousands and harming many more. Almost every child got one or more of them. I got infected by mumps, measles, Rubella, and chicken pox. I was proud to be a “polio pioneer,” a test subject for the then new polio vaccine. Despite the mortality and morbidity from these now easy-to-prevent infections, most children back in that day survived the MMR diseases with no detecta...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Henderson Co. Jail offering Hepatitis A vaccine for inmates and staff    14 News WFIE Evansville Jailer Amy Brady told us someone who was diagnosed with the disease was booked into the jail on March 21. https://ift.tt/2OyiExW

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio should brace for a second year of a hepatitis A outbreak that has killed seven Ohioans and hospitalized more than 1,000 since 2018, health officials said recently. The state declared a hepatitis A outbreak in June 2018 when it saw the number of cases rise to 79, which is nearly double the yearly average, said Sietske de Fijter , state epidemiologist with the Ohio Department of Health. State workers have tracked about 2,000 hepatitis A cases since the start of 2018. Cuyahoga County has seen about 30 cases during that time. Outbreaks of hepatitis A, an infectious disease that attacks the liver, commonly last about two years. While there are hints that the current outbreak may be slowing, the illness will probably continue to spread, de Fijter said. Hepatitis A spreads when people ingest food or water contaminated with small particles of infected fecal matter. It also can be spread by close contact with an infected person or object. The illness causes fati...