Thread: Measle outbreak in Boston

Boston reports first measles outbreak in 7 years
Thu May 25, 2006 8:10pm ET
Text [+] By Belinda Yu

BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston health officials worked on Thursday to contain the city's first outbreak of measles in seven years after four people in a downtown office tower were diagnosed with the highly infectious disease.

The Boston Public Health Commission opened a second emergency health clinic at the 60-story John Hancock Tower after it became known that hundreds of workers may be at risk of developing measles.

Measles was long considered a normal childhood disease, but the virus can cause severe complications in otherwise healthy children and adults, including sometimes fatal encephalitis, pneumonia and diarrhea.


The four who were diagnosed with the disease all worked at Investors Bank & Trust, a financial services firm. Three of the workers caught the disease from a contract worker who recently traveled from India.An initial emergency clinic was set up on May 11 after the first case emerged.

Only 37 measles cases were reported in the United States in 2004, an all-time low, according to the most recent data.

But a few cases are still imported from countries with lower vaccination rates and the disease occurs domestically as well, health officials say.

John Auerbach, Boston Public Health Commission's executive director, said hundreds of workers at Investors Bank & Trust had received vaccinations to prevent an outbreak. Continued...

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While measles is very rare, Auerbach said, "there are still pockets of the population that aren't immunized."

A month ago U.S. Public health officials expressed concern about an outbreak of mumps in the Midwest and said some people may have been infected on airline flights.

John Riley, head of marketing and communications at Investors Bank & Trust -- a firm with 1,500 employees in Boston -- said all four workers had recovered.

Measles is a highly contagious illness that begins with a high fever, runny nose and watery, red eyes, and develops into a rash that spreads over the body. The illness is spread through the air when a sick person coughs, sneezes or even talks, according to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health fact sheet.


Most developed countries routinely vaccinate children against measles but the virus still killed 500,000 people, mostly children, around the world in 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsartic ... ticlePage1

terrific! Here we go....
From what I have been told as well, most adults today who had vaccines as children need booster shots for many of the diseases that we thought we had immunity to that are now making a comeback.
Wait until it's smallpox....

I hear that Barkway, they say these new strains are resistant to the vaccines we have gotten in the past.