The World Health Organization (WHO) released a list of the “Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019” on Jan. 14, 2019. The organization stated, “The world is facing multiple health challenges. These range from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases...
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The World Health Organization (WHO) released a list of the “Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019” on Jan. 14, 2019. The organization stated, “The world is facing multiple health challenges. These range from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria, increasing reports of drug-resistant pathogens, growing rates of obesity and physical inactivity to the health impacts of environmental pollution and climate change and multiple humanitarian crises.”

The list includes air pollution and climate change as the “greatest environmental risk to health,” with the WHO estimating that 90% of people worldwide breathe polluted air daily, which kills seven million people every year. Air pollution also contributes to climate change, which the WHO estimates will cause an extra 250,000 deaths yearly from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

The WHO states primary health care “ideally should provide comprehensive, affordable, community-based care throughout life.” Many countries have what the WHO called “weak primary care,” which the organization hopes to “revitalize and strengthen” in 2019.

Also on the list are anti-vaxxers. The WHO defines “vaccine hesitancy” as “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines,” which the WHO says, “threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.” According to the WHO, 1.5 million deaths could be prevented if vaccine coverage improved worldwide.

Fragile and vulnerable settings, such as places where there is famine, conflict, or drought, made the list because it impacts 1.6 billion people, about 22% of the global population.

Non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, are responsible for over 70% of deaths, including 15 million premature deaths of people between 30 and 69. Ebola and other high-threat pathogens, HIV/AIDS dengue, and an impending flu pandemic are also on the list.

And, finally, antimicrobial resistance, defined as resistance to antibiotics, antivirals, and antimalarials, “threatens to send us back to a time when we were unable to easily treat infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and salmonellosis [salmonella],” according to the WHO.

(via Climate Change, Weak Health Care, and Anti-Vaccination in WHO Ten Threats to Global Health - ProCon.org)

Source: procon.org

Kids with Autism and Younger Siblings Less Likely to Be Fully Vaccinated

Children who have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their younger siblings are less likely to have received the full slate of CDC recommended vaccinations, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics on Mar. 26, 2018. 80% of children with ASD received all CDC recommended vaccines between ages four and six, compared to 94% of children without an autism diagnosis. Of the younger siblings of children with ASD, 73% had been fully vaccinated by 11 months old, compared to 85% of the younger siblings of children without autism diagnoses.

The study surveyed 3,729 children diagnosed as on the autism spectrum before age five who were born between 1995 and 2010 and 592,907 children without autism diagnoses in six locations in the United States.

Lead author Ousseny Zerbo, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Vaccine Study Center at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, stated, “In this large and comprehensive study, we found that after children received an autism diagnosis, the rates of vaccination were significantly lower when compared with children of the same age who did not have an autism diagnosis.”

Robin P. Goin-Kochel, PhD, Associate Director for Research at the Autism Center of Texas Children’s Hospital, stated, “Fears about an autism-vaccine link persist and contribute to growing numbers of unvaccinated or undervaccinated children.” Her own work found that children with autism are likely to be fully vaccinated up to age 2, when children are typically diagnosed with autism

Source: procon.org

Disneyland Measles Outbreak Infects 94, Mostly Unvaccinated

imageA measles outbreak tied to California’s Disneyland theme park likely traces back to a foreign tourist or an American infected overseas, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The outbreak has infected 94 people in eight states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) and Mexico, with 67 of those cases linked directly to Disneyland, as of Jan. 30, 2015.

Children who had not received the vaccine were most affected by the outbreak. A high rate of personal belief exemptions in California is thought to have contributed to the spread of the virus. Every state requires the MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccine for entry to public school kindergarten, unless a medical, religious, or personal belief exemption is filed.

Anne Schuchat, MD, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, stated that measles is “the most infectious virus known, with a 90 percent transmission rate among people who are not immunized or otherwise immune to it. Each patient with measles can infect 12 to 18 people.” Schuchat added that measles is common in the rest of the world, with an estimated 20 million cases and more than 145,000 deaths per year: “This is a wake-up call to make sure that we keep measles from regaining a foothold in our country. France went from about 40 cases a year to over 10,000 cases.”