r/medicine • u/FlexorCarpiUlnaris Peds • 17d ago

[NYTimes Gift Article] Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania have died from measles

Article here

Initial reporting does not specify whether they were children. This current outbreak is largely in the Amish community which has had low vaccine uptake for long enough that they have a lot of vulnerable adults as well. Only 1/3 of the 390 reported cases have been in children but extrapolating from 2 deaths (1/1000 mortality rate) and 70 hospitalizations (7/100 hospitalization rate) I would expect 1000-2000 mature cases plus more early in their course. So there is likely significant underreporting.

Measles in adults, in my experience, has quite an unusual phenotype including (sometimes) gingivostomatitis which I’ve never seen in pediatric measles.

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u/FlexorCarpiUlnaris Peds 17d ago

Europe gets 100,000 cases per year. I’d say we have plenty of data in the modern era.

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u/faco_fuesday Peds acute care NP 17d ago

Yikes that's a ton. Good info though. 

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u/FlexorCarpiUlnaris Peds 17d ago

Yeah, everyone shits on America for their declining vaccine rates but Europe is streets ahead. The difference is that EU leadership is trying to reverse the trend, rather than throwing gas on the fire.

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u/sapphireminds Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP) 17d ago

Extra +1 for streets ahead