With increasingly more measles cases cropping up across the US and vaccination rates falling amid a wave of anti-vax sentiment at the highest level, many have been left wondering what the future holds for the reemergence of once-wiped-out diseases. According to new research out of Stanford University, which has predicted the number of cases of measles, rubella, polio, and diphtheria over a 25-year period, it’s not looking good.
If childhood vaccination rates stay as they are at present, the team’s model reveals that measles may become endemic again – that means an estimated 851,300 cases over the next quarter of a century. If things get worse, however, that number could skyrocket. Under a 50 percent decline in vaccination, the model predicted 51.2 million measles cases. In this worst-case scenario, it could be endemic within five years.
Even just a 10 percent drop in measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination could result in 11.1 million measles cases over the next 25 years.
Other vaccine-preventable diseases are unlikely to reestablish endemicity under current levels of vaccination, the researchers predicted – but under a 50 percent decline, the US could see 9.9 million rubella cases, 4.3 million poliomyelitis cases, and 197 diphtheria cases.
That equates to a total of 10.3 million hospitalizations and 159,200 deaths over 25 years.
Fortunately, though, increasing vaccine coverage would help mitigate this devastating and potentially deadly impact. A 5 percent rise in MMR vaccinations would mean the US could see just 5,800 cases of measles, the modeling suggests.
To come to these conclusions, the team used large-scale epidemiological modeling to simulate the spread of infectious diseases under various childhood vaccination conditions. Their findings, they hope, will provide useful information for decision makers setting vaccine policy.
“We’ve seen a worrisome pattern of decreasing routine childhood vaccinations,” the study’s senior author Dr Nathan Lo said in a statement. “People look around and say, ‘We don’t see these diseases. Why should we vaccinate against them?’ There’s a general fatigue with vaccines. And there’s distrust and misinformation about vaccine effectiveness and safety.”
And that’s a real problem for once-eliminated diseases like measles, polio, and rubella.
“Right now, so many people are immune through vaccination that diseases don’t spread far. But if vaccinations decline over a longer period, you start to see outbreaks increase in size and frequency. Eventually you see sustained, ongoing transmission, meaning these diseases become endemic – they become household names once again,” Lo continued.
We’ve already started to see the effects of this in the US: the country is currently experiencing its worst measles outbreak in years. According to the latest available information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of April 17, there had been 800 confirmed cases reported by 25 jurisdictions. So far, three people have died; the first measles deaths in the US since 2015. For comparison, last year, just 285 measles cases were reported.
“With measles, we found that we’re already on the precipice of disaster,” lead author Dr Mathew Kiang added.
“It’s worth emphasizing that there really shouldn’t be any cases at this point, because these diseases are preventable. Anything above zero is tragic. When you’re talking about potentially thousands or millions, that’s unfathomable.”
The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Source Link: “On The Precipice Of Disaster”: Millions Of Measles Cases Predicted In US If Shots Decline
