Month: November 2020

A box of doses from the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Photo: Elaine Thompson (AP) A new report from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights a bleak reality: Measles, the highly contagious but vaccine-preventable viral illness, infected at least 860,000 people and killed over 200,000 worldwide in 2019—a roughly 50% jump in deaths from 2016. Sadly, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to make this situation even worse. Following the invention of a vaccine for measles in the 1960s, annual cases took a sharp plunge. In the U.S., the establishment of a nationwide vaccine program for childhood diseases led to the local elimination of measles in the year 2000. In 2016, cases globally reached a record low, leading to hopes it could be er...

ANN ARBOR – Due to an exponential growth in COVID-19 cases in the area, the Washtenaw County Health Department announced Thursday that it is now experiencing delays in contact tracing calls and emails. “Don’t wait for a call from the Health Department," Jimena Loveluck, health officer for Washtenaw County Health Department, said in a statement. “At this point, we all know we should be staying away from others if you tested positive, have symptoms, are waiting on test results, or are a close contact. “With the surge in cases and related hospitalizations, we cannot get to all situations as quickly as we’d like. We can still prevent additional cases, protect everyone’s health, and preserve resources as much as possible by following established public health guidance for isolation or quarant...

(CNN) — Temperature and symptom-based screening programs don't help catch coronavirus cases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report that took a closer look at the programs used at US airports until mid-September. In January, the CDC started an enhanced screening program for air passengers arriving from certain countries with widespread transmission of the novel coronavirus. The goal was to find travelers who were sick and separate them from other passengers, to share information with travelers about self-monitoring and to get their contact information that could be shared with the passenger's local public health department. The CDC said this was a resource-intensive program that had a low case detection rate. Between January 17 and September 13, the CDC...

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