Vaccine hesitancy leads to a public health emergency in Pacific Northwest

Washington state in the USA has declared a public health emergency after 31 cases of measles were reported in Clark County.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases around, and it can sometimes prove fatal in small children. But for decades now it has been held in check by the very effective MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine. However, Washington finds itself caught up in the anti-vaccination hysteria which I have already vented about in a previous post.

Also, the (generally pretty enlightened and progesssive) state of Washington and the next-door state of Oregon, are much more permissive than other states when it comes to allowing parents to opt out of vaccines. In Clark County in particular, nearly 8% of children obtained vaccine exemptions for non-medical reasons (i.e. for philosophical or religious reasons) when entering kindergarten, as compared to a national average of around 2%. The exemption rate in neighbouring Oregon has also increased dramatically in recent years from 5.8% to 7.5% this year. 16 other states allow vaccination exemptions for moral or personal reasons, and almost all of them have seen their rates of exemptions increase in recent years. This creates a big potential problem when the "herd immunity" threshold for measles is around 95%.

So, a nasty disease that was essentially eradicated has been allowed to return due to ignorant people and cowardly state legislatures. Well, maybe this latest outbreak will encourage these states to be less permissive and more zealous in policing child vaccinations. If the population is too stupid to look after its kids, then the state has to step in and insist on certain basic levels of health education and child protection.

UPDATE
The "vaccine hesitancy" outbreak has spread north, and a cluster of 9 measles cases has been reported in British Columbia.
Even worse, the Philippines has seen 136 deaths from measles this year, the vast majority children, although this is less due to middle-class qualms than a more general leeriness towards vaccinations in the country.