Samoa Measles Emergency Extended
On Dec. 20, 2019, the government of Samoa announced that 94 percent of the island nation’s population of about 200,000 people had been vaccinated against measles as part of a government-led mandatory, mass vaccination campaign. As of Dec. 20, the Samoan Ministry of Health (MOH) had confirmed 5,463 reported cases with 1,762 hospitalizations and 78 […]
Vitamin A Shipped to Samoa
Health officials in Samoa, assisted by international health organizations, have struggled to manage a surge in measles and apparent deaths from measles on the impoverished island since the first laboratory confirmed cases were reported in September 2019. A state of emergency was declared on November 15, and by December 11, 4995 measles cases had been recorded, […]
Polio Eradication Stalls with More Wild-Type and Vaccine Strain Polio Outbreaks
After 65 years of global polio mass vaccination campaigns, on Oct. 24, 2019 (“World Polio Day”) the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that, along with wild type 2 poliovirus declared eradicated in 2015, wild type 3 poliovirus has been eradicated from the earth.1 The credit for the achievement was given to the Global Polio Eradication […]
“Vaccine-Derived” Polio on the Rise
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) last week reported that there have been a total of 22 confirmed cases of vaccine-derived polio paralysis, thus far, in 2019. The latest two cases involve a person from Sichuan province in China and a person in Angola. Other evidence of circulating vaccine strain poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has […]
CDC: “Measles Elimination Status” Could End in U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on May 30, 2019 that, if the current measles outbreak continues, the U.S. could lose its measles elimination status that has been in effect since 2000. According to the agency: “If these outbreaks continue through summer and fall, the United States may lose its measles elimination […]
