Baranyai: Measles' recent resurgence underscores risks of vaccine hesitancy
Robin Baranyai, Special to Postmedia News More from Robin Baranyai, Special to Postmedia News
Updated: November 29, 2019 9:21 AM PST
A dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is displayed. (File photo)
It's a tough call, and not taken lightly, when governments force people to be vaccinated over their own objections.
It's a tough call, and not taken lightly, when governments force people to be vaccinated over their own objections. Same goes for their kids. Such a drastic violation of personal autonomy and parental authority demands a high burden of proof that the measure is both safe and necessary.
School boards and health authorities generally let families opt out of vaccines based on religious or personal beliefs. But the reasons for vaccine hesitancy are now so laden with mistrust and misinformation, it's shifted from a question of personal conviction to one of simple math.
A scant few years ago, measles was all but eradicated. Then, unexpectedly, the trend reversed; 2019 was the measles comeback tour. Not a tepid, testing-the-waters, Louis C.K. sort of comeback. More like what you'd expect if Michael Jackson popped up with a zombie army.
Samoa is in the grip of a national emergency. Some 2,200 cases of measles have been reported since last month. That's nearly one in 90, in a nation of not quite 200,000 people. As of Monday, the outbreak had claimed 25 lives, 24 of them children under five.
The country temporarily suspended its inoculation program last year, after two infants died. Human error administering the shots was identified as the cause, not the vaccine itself. But the damage was done. From over 70 per cent in 2013, Samoa's immunization rate plummeted below 30 per cent last year.
Measles is wickedly contagious. How bad is it? The virus can survive in the air as long as two hours after an infected person has left the room. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, without protection, up to 90 per cent of people exposed to the virus will get sick.
Measles can lead to blindness and brain swelling. Patients who survive the disease may suffer other long-term impacts. The virus can wipe out immunity to other infections, causing the body to "forget" how to make specific antibodies, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Samoa's outbreak is believed to have started in New Zealand, in an area with historically low immunization rates. From there, it also spread to Australia, Tonga and Fiji. Outbreaks have cropped up around the world: Ukraine, Philippines, Brazil, the U.S., Madagascar and Nigeria.
By far the worst epidemic of 2019 is unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where close to a quarter million people have been infected. The death toll is approaching a staggering 5,000.
Some of these areas face significant challenges in delivering routine preventive health care. The DRC is plagued by war, internal displacement, mistrust of government-run programs, and periodic Ebola outbreaks.
In Canada, we are unburdened by such challenges, and privileged with easy access to vaccines. So it's frustrating to see people creating their own obstacles, such as a court challenge to Ontario's school vaccination laws.
To be clear, the law doesn't force every child to be vaccinated to attend school. It simply requires guardians seeking non-medical exemptions to attend an education session to ensure they are making an informed choice. It's a far cry from the mandatory inoculations that have become necessary in Samoa, or to control a recent outbreak sweeping parts of Brooklyn.
In the age of air travel, it's nonsense to imagine we are geographically isolated from disaster. One Disney outbreak should have put that notion to bed.
Vaccine hesitants get one thing right. Vaccines do carry some risks, though rare; the package inserts make that clear. Just like life-saving heart medication. Or Advil, for that matter. What their objections conveniently overlook is the devastation wrought by the alternative.
write.robin@baranyai.ca
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