A school-age child in Los Angeles County died of a rare complication of measles after a reduction in this disease in infancy, the district public health department said on Thursday.
A child who was not an adult to be vaccinated during an infection died from an underlined sclerosing panensfalite, a fatal progressive brain disease, which inflicts about 1 out of 10,000 people infected with measles in the United States, believe that the risk is as high as the risk of as high as 1 out of every 600 children Who makes measles in childhood.
The disorder usually develops two -10 years after the initial infection, even when – as in the case of this child – the patient is completely restored from measles. The disease begins with seizures, a decrease in cognitive drugs and involuntary muscle spasms, and also moves to dementia, coma and ultimately death.
“Most pediatricians in the United States have never seen a child with SSPE because we instilled in Corey children for decades.” said Dr. Adam RatnerThe New York Pediatric Specialist in Infectious Dizaza and the author of Boster Pictures: Urgent Core Lessons and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health.
According to the representative, the Department of Public Health of the Los -Angeles district could not publish additional information about the age, sex or location of the child from the laws on the confidentiality of patients.
The department could only confirm that the child acquired measles before getting the right to vaccine MMR.
“This case is a painful reminder of how dangerous measles can be, especially for our most vulnerable members of the community,” said the district employee of the district, Munta Davis, in his statement. “Babies, too young to be vaccinated, rely on all of us to help protect them through community immunity.”
Children usually receive their first MMR dose when they are from 12 to 15 months, and the second dose aged 4 to 6 years.
The early first dose from 6 to 11 months is recommended for children traveling at the international level or through the International Center. Babies under the age of 6 months are too young to get a MMR shot, in accordance with guidelines From the US centers for the control and prevention of diseases.
Very young children rely on antibodies acquired during pregnancy and herd immunity to protect them from measles, as a result of which in the USA there were approximately 400 children in the United States before the introduction of the combined MMR vaccine in 1971.
The measles were “eliminated” in the USA in 2000, which means that the disease was quite rare, and immunity is quite widespread to prevent local transmission if an erroneous case appears.
For 25 years, parents in the United States were able to believe that herd Immunity would protect children from measles until they become adults enough to be vaccinated.
This recent death may be a signal that a public contract begins to break.
The level of immunization in childhood is slowly but steadily falling throughout the country, from 95% over the years before the pandemia of Covid up to below 93% In the 2023-24 academic yearField
California has one of the five US states, which banned all exceptions for a non -medical vaccine, vaccination This year's assessment was 96.2%. California too One of 10 states Given the vaccination of vaccination in kindergarten, exceeding 95% threshold experts, is necessary to achieve the immunity of the herd.
But if the current vaccination indicators are stable in the coming decades, measles will again become endemic in the United States for 25 years, two researchers of the University of Stanford were found in the study Published earlier this yearField
“Right now we really should try to increase vaccination rates,” Matthew KiangAccording to The Times in April, associate professor of the department of epidemiology and public health. “If we simply saved them as they are, bad things will happen for two decades.”
Times employees Jenny Gold contributed to this report.
