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Experts work to prevent measles outbreak in Iowa


KGAN - Measles PKG
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A disease once thought to be eradicated in the United States is making a comeback. Several states are reporting hundreds of cases of measles. So far, Iowa is not one of them and local health leaders want to keep it that way. Jennifer Miller with the Johnson County Public Health Department says it's important because the disease is one of the most contagious known to man. "It's very easily spread, you don't need a lot to get sick with it, and it stays in the air for up to a couple of hours after someone's been there."

Miller tracks tens of thousands of health records in Johnson County. According to her records, more than 90% of children in the county are getting the MMR vaccine, which protects against Measles, Mumps and Rubella. That rate of vaccination is high enough for the all-important herd immunity. "So what we mean by herd immunity is we're helping, healthy people are not passing that along to people that are not able to be vaccinated."

But that's not the case in areas of New York City and several other states where an explosion of cases has some leaders taking drastic steps. New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio declared a public health emergency in parts of the city, making the free vaccine mandatory and threatening those who refuse the shot to pay a fine. Here in Iowa, there are no cases of measles this year. Miller says that's due in large part to successful vaccination rates as well as geography. "We know that most cases of measles are originally the person that was originally ill often acquires that overseas, so I tink you see areas that have more people coming from overseas."

Overseas measles remains one of the leading causes of preventable death. In the United States, one death has been recorded in five years. But the rest of the world reports more than 100,000 deaths from measles each year.

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