Registered User
My concern with the non-immunised is exposure to someone from a foreign country who is not immunised (in a country with high rates of disease) and unknowingly ill that has traveled or migrated here and we have an outbreak because so many people have chosen not to immunise. It puts everyone at risk of contracting a horrible disease and could have catostrophic results.
I too would be interested in reading the documentation on the ill effects of immunisation for curiousities sake.
Last edited by Sair; October 6th, 2008 at 08:31 AM. : trying to make more sense
Those who ARE vaccinated are at significantly lower risk, whether they're exposed or not.
In Africa between 2002 and 2006 measles deaths fell by 91% due to the vaccination programme. Vaccination offers strong protection (not complete, but strong) against these diseases.
Bx
Moderator
I think that in this scenario the disease that we will have to worry about isn't polio or another disease we can vaccinate for (although I do worry about polio) but something like bird flu. If/when bird flu or something similar becomes transmissable between humans we're probably in for a massive and horrendous epidemic.
I don't think there is anything much we can do to protect ourselves against the next big epidmemic.
TBH there's no reason to assume that it will travel from less developed countries to richer countries - the jump could occur anywhere.
I think that herd protection isn't as effective as some people believe because despite herd immunity measles is coming back in a big way. There is a strong correlation between the falling rates of immunisation and the increase of measles.
TBH if someone thinks that the risks from measles are so low that they don't mind their children getting the illness I have no problem with that. I had childhood illnesses because my mother wasn't big on vaccinating for the 'minor' diseases like chicken pox. They were the worst weeks of my life (and not just because I missed carnival with c-pox) but I did survive. On the other hand if they don't want thier children to get the illnesses but think that they'll be safe because other people have vaccinated, that strikes me as a tad selfish. Why should other children have to go though vaccination to protect their children?
It's great to see statistics like that. The death toll from disease in poorer communities is just heartbreaking. It's so easy to be complacent here and dismiss diseases like measles as uncomfortable and annoying and only rarely fatal that we forget in poorer communities they kill so much more easily.
Dach for herd immunity to protect the whole herd vaccine uptake needs to be at 95% and since Andrew Wakefields little injection into the issue it's fallen as low as 74% in some parts of the UK with the national average being around 82%. Local health authorities usually have the uptake stats available, but if it's under 95% your random unvaxed person is not safe.
I'm not sure if it's selfishness or a misunderstanding as to how vaccination and infection work, that makes some think they can "worry about it when it happens". DD was not vaxed against chickenpox because it's not offered. Does the varicella vaccine remove the risk of shingles? I have had pox and it was actually not too bad (i was only 6), but my whole family get shingles in old age and many of them suffer for several months a year... They're bringing the varicella vaccine in soon and i'd consider it for DD if it protected against shingles.
Bx
Registered User
Bx, as far as I know locally, there have been some cases around here in the past few years of children getting c-pox even if vaccinated and the odd case of shingles in adults (some of which have also had c-pox). Don't get me wrong, I"m not against vaccination by what I've said - heck I have 3 vaccinated children and a baby who was vacced till 6mths, I am choosing not to vaccinate any further for any of them. You just can't assume that even vaxed people are safe or wont become carriers is all my issue was in relation to the OP's 'theory' so I don't have links, just my mind thinking overtime. I won't be relying on herd immunity either because I think that's a pretty poor and lazy way to choose not to vacinate.
And since the chicken pox vaccine has been brought into the discussion, I have come full circle on that one. I was a staunch supporter of it and had my older three vaccinated for it even though it wasn't on the schedule for them, but in light of my own research I don't think it gives a strong enough protection for long enough.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Um side question - can diseases truly die out?
Registered User
To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated. Apart from the samples of it that they have stored in 2 sites in the USA & Russia..... biological warfare anyone?
That's why it's not been offered in the UK so far Trillian, the NHS cannot AFFORD to blanket-vaccinate with an ineffective vaccine, and i think the varicella vaccine efficacy is the lowest at around 80%, though as i said, of the 20% who aren't immune after vaccination, they do seem (anecdotally to me, because i've not looked for any studies) to get less severe attacks. Unlike Dach i didn't find the pox too bad and certainly not bad enough to go out of my way to vax for (she'd have to be offered catch-up as it wasn't on her schedule), but if the 80% who don't get chickenpox after vaccination ALSO can't get shingles, it really *might* be worth it for DD.
Bx
Lulu, yes. Like any living thing, they can become extinct. Smallpox is extinct in the living population, though it exists as a bilogical weapon (allegedly, though it's almost certainly true).
When you get measles, while you have the disease it is multiplying like crazy in you and getting out via liquid droplets (in sneezes, coughs and your breath) to other people. If they inhale it and are not immune (through vaccination or previous exposure) they get infected. However, your body launches an attack on the measles cells and kills them all, and you get better. If enough people are vaccinated that there is no-one for your measles to infect then it dies out.
Polio is on the verge of eradication right now, which is tremendously fantastic news.
Bx
Moderator
Diseases can die out like any other living thing.
One example is a disease called The Sweats that killed large numbers every summer in Medieval Europe. Now its disappeared.
Of course it might exist in tiny pocket rather than being totally extinct just as some animal and plant populations do.
Of course human agency makes them more likely to die out - same as other life forms.
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