The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert to doctors on Monday to increase awareness of the international spread of measles, and urged them to vaccinate infants a few months ahead of the typical schedule if families are planning to go abroad.
CDC
The CDC program asks arriving international passengers to volunteer to have their noses swabbed and answer questions about their travel. The program began in 2021 and has been credited with detecting coronavirus variants faster than other systems.
There are still more than 20,000 hospitalizations and more than 2,000 deaths each week due to the coronavirus, according to the CDC. And people 65 and older have the highest hospitalization and death rates.
Most people have some degree of immunity to the coronavirus from past vaccinations or from infections. And many people are not following the five-day isolation guidance anyway, some experts say.
From 2008 to 2017, about $12 million in federal research awards were granted to study pediatric firearm mortality each year – about $600 per life lost, according to a study published in Health Affairs. Motor vehicle crashes, the leading cause of death among children at the time, received about $26,000 of research funding per death.
There are now a total of 47 reported illnesses, including 10 hospitalizations, in 22 states, including Illinois.
According to CDC estimates, since the beginning of October, there have been at least 10 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations, and 6,500 deaths from flu so far this season. The agency said 27 children have died of flu.
High levels of flu-like illnesses were reported last week in 17 states — up from 14 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
About 7 million fewer adults have gotten their flu shot so far this season compared with the last virus season. Vaccination coverage for COVID-19 is also low, with just 17% of adults and about 8% of children getting the latest shot, according to CDC data through Dec. 2.
Doctors have not been able to pin down a cause, although research suggests it is a body’s prolonged overreaction to an infection or other jolt to the immune system.
While the public health emergency is officially over, COVID-19 is still making people sick, and health officials say they’ve entered a new front.
Three cases were reported in both California and Florida, with other cases reported in Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
More parents are questioning routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect of the political schism that emerged during the pandemic around COVID-19 vaccines, experts say.
U.S. public health officials are calling for urgent action to curb an alarming increase in the number of babies born with syphilis. In infants, syphilis can be a severe, disabling and sometimes life-threatening infection.
Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said manufacturers, who are making the immunization for the first time, underestimated demand.
The endorsement from the CDC and the committee means the vaccines will be covered by public and private insurance plans. The new vaccines have been updated to fend off the currently circulating viruses that cause COVID-19.