Why West Africa Might Soon Have 100,000 More Measles Cases

There’s not a war college in the world that couldn’t learn a thing or two from the way viruses operate. They’re stealthy, they’re territorial, they seek and destroy and know just where to hit. And, just when you think you’ve got them beat, they forge an alliance with another of your enemies. That, according to a new paper published Thursday in Science, is what’s poised to happen with Ebola and measles—and it’s the babies and children of Africa who will overwhelmingly pay the price. The Ebola epidemic is by no means over, but it is being contained and controlled. With nearly 24,000 cases and more than 9,800 fatalities so far—mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia—the epidemic is still claiming new victims, though more slowly. The crisis, however, has disrupted health-care delivery across the entire affected region, preventing children from receiving badly needed measles vaccines. That, the new study reports, could result in an additional 100,000 measles cases over the next 18 months, leading to an additional 2,000 to 16,000 deaths. Rates of vaccination against other diseases—particularly polio and tuberculosis—have fallen too. But measles’ ease of transmission makes it especially worrisome. “When there’s a disruption of medical services, measles is always one of the first ones in the door,” says Justin Lester, of the Johns Hopkins School of Epidemiology, a co-author of the paper...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Disease ebola epidemics health measles medicine vaccines Virus Source Type: news