tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Science 13 March 2015:
Vol. 347 no. 6227 pp. 1240-1242
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa3438
[h=2]Vaccinate children despite Ebola[/h] During the medical emergency caused by the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, routine childhood vaccination programs have been suspended. If vaccination is not resumed soon, there could be even more deaths. Measles is highly infectious, and outbreaks are a sign of health care systems in trouble. Using mathematical modelling, Takahashi et al. estimate that about a million children across Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are vulnerable to measles. Aggressive public health programs are vital for this region to minimize harm, not only from measles but also from polio, malaria, tuberculosis, and other childhood infections.
Science, this issue p. 1240
[h=2]Abstract[/h] The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has caused substantial morbidity and mortality. The outbreak has also disrupted health care services, including childhood vaccinations, creating a second public health crisis. We project that after 6 to 18 months of disruptions, a large connected cluster of children unvaccinated for measles will accumulate across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This pool of susceptibility increases the expected size of a regional measles outbreak from 127,000 to 227,000 cases after 18 months, resulting in 2000 to 16,000 additional deaths (comparable to the numbers of Ebola deaths reported thus far). There is a clear path to avoiding outbreaks of childhood vaccine-preventable diseases once the threat of Ebola begins to recede: an aggressive regional vaccination campaign aimed at age groups left unprotected because of health care disruptions.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1240.abstract
Vol. 347 no. 6227 pp. 1240-1242
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa3438
- Report
- Saki Takahashi[SUP]1[/SUP],
- C. Jessica E. Metcalf[SUP]1[/SUP],[SUP]2[/SUP],
- Matthew J. Ferrari[SUP]3[/SUP],
- William J. Moss[SUP]4[/SUP],
- Shaun A. Truelove[SUP]4[/SUP],
- Andrew J. Tatem[SUP]5[/SUP],[SUP]6[/SUP],[SUP]7[/SUP],
- Bryan T. Grenfell[SUP]1[/SUP],[SUP]6[/SUP],
- Justin Lessler[SUP]4[/SUP],*
- [SUP]1[/SUP]Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
- [SUP]2[/SUP]Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
- [SUP]3[/SUP]Centre for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16801, USA.
- [SUP]4[/SUP]Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
- [SUP]5[/SUP]Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
- [SUP]6[/SUP]Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
- [SUP]7[/SUP]Flowminder Foundation, 17177 Stockholm, Sweden.
- ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: justin{at}jhu.edu
[h=2]Vaccinate children despite Ebola[/h] During the medical emergency caused by the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, routine childhood vaccination programs have been suspended. If vaccination is not resumed soon, there could be even more deaths. Measles is highly infectious, and outbreaks are a sign of health care systems in trouble. Using mathematical modelling, Takahashi et al. estimate that about a million children across Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are vulnerable to measles. Aggressive public health programs are vital for this region to minimize harm, not only from measles but also from polio, malaria, tuberculosis, and other childhood infections.
Science, this issue p. 1240
[h=2]Abstract[/h] The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has caused substantial morbidity and mortality. The outbreak has also disrupted health care services, including childhood vaccinations, creating a second public health crisis. We project that after 6 to 18 months of disruptions, a large connected cluster of children unvaccinated for measles will accumulate across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This pool of susceptibility increases the expected size of a regional measles outbreak from 127,000 to 227,000 cases after 18 months, resulting in 2000 to 16,000 additional deaths (comparable to the numbers of Ebola deaths reported thus far). There is a clear path to avoiding outbreaks of childhood vaccine-preventable diseases once the threat of Ebola begins to recede: an aggressive regional vaccination campaign aimed at age groups left unprotected because of health care disruptions.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1240.abstract