Lock your doors! Bar your windows! A measles epidemic is sweeping across Australia!
10 people in Victoria and four in Queensland have caught the potentially fatal disease in the last month.
OK, so maybe 'epidemic' is a bit of a strong word to use. 14 sick people is not quite the zombie apocalypse but it's 14 people too many. Why? Because measles is nasty and it must be destroyed.
Measles causes a painful rash and fever. Most people get better, but some get very sick and some die. In 2011, 20 million people caught measles worldwide, and 158,000 died.
But not here. In Australia, only a few hundred people catch measles each year and nobody has died for a long time.
We are lucky here because most of us are protected against measles. You were probably given a vaccine - an injection that helps your body kill any measles viruses that you come into contact with - when you turned one and again at four, and that should protect you for life. If everybody had their vaccines then there wouldn't be any measles. It would go extinct.
Hurray!
In Australia, so many people have had the vaccine that there shouldn't be any more measles. But in some other countries lots of people catch measles. Some of these people bring it to Australia and spread it around, mostly to people who have not had the vaccine. This is why we occasionally get these mini-epidemics.
Why hasn't everyone been vaccinated? Some people can't be vaccinated for health reasons. Also, some parents forget to vaccinate their kids, and some refuse to vaccinate their kids because they think that the vaccine is dangerous. Nothing that comes in a needle is completely safe but getting a vaccine is much safer than catching the disease. If enough people worldwide got the measles vaccine the disease would disappear and millions of lives would be saved.
A few years ago some researchers said that the measles vaccine caused autism, but this was not true. One of the doctors doing the research had been lying. He is not allowed to be a doctor any more.
Other diseases that we can and should destroy with vaccines are polio, whooping cough (also called pertussis), German measles (rubella), mumps, chickenpox (varicella) and more.
We've already killed off one deadly disease called smallpox. What should we kill next?
Sources:
The Age
Brisbane Times
World Health Organisation
Better Health Channel
10 people in Victoria and four in Queensland have caught the potentially fatal disease in the last month.
OK, so maybe 'epidemic' is a bit of a strong word to use. 14 sick people is not quite the zombie apocalypse but it's 14 people too many. Why? Because measles is nasty and it must be destroyed.
Measles causes a painful rash and fever. Most people get better, but some get very sick and some die. In 2011, 20 million people caught measles worldwide, and 158,000 died.
But not here. In Australia, only a few hundred people catch measles each year and nobody has died for a long time.
We are lucky here because most of us are protected against measles. You were probably given a vaccine - an injection that helps your body kill any measles viruses that you come into contact with - when you turned one and again at four, and that should protect you for life. If everybody had their vaccines then there wouldn't be any measles. It would go extinct.
Hurray!
In Australia, so many people have had the vaccine that there shouldn't be any more measles. But in some other countries lots of people catch measles. Some of these people bring it to Australia and spread it around, mostly to people who have not had the vaccine. This is why we occasionally get these mini-epidemics.
Why hasn't everyone been vaccinated? Some people can't be vaccinated for health reasons. Also, some parents forget to vaccinate their kids, and some refuse to vaccinate their kids because they think that the vaccine is dangerous. Nothing that comes in a needle is completely safe but getting a vaccine is much safer than catching the disease. If enough people worldwide got the measles vaccine the disease would disappear and millions of lives would be saved.
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| Diseases that must be destroyed. Click to make bigger. Source: Unicef |
Other diseases that we can and should destroy with vaccines are polio, whooping cough (also called pertussis), German measles (rubella), mumps, chickenpox (varicella) and more.
We've already killed off one deadly disease called smallpox. What should we kill next?
The Age
Brisbane Times
World Health Organisation
Better Health Channel
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