Biden to discuss COVID-19 response after CDC backs boosters

WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden on Friday will deliver remarks on the nation's COVID-19 response, including vaccinations, the White House said, one day after federal health agencies backed a booster rollout.

The boosters will be available for people 65 and older, people at high risk of severe disease or of contracting COVID-19 through their work, and who were vaccinated six months ago with the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Biden had called for booster shots against the novel coronavirus to begin this week for all people once they were eight months out from vaccination, pending regulators' approval.

But the US Food and Drug Administration and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week only cleared the way for a subset, though it did broaden the timeframe for eligibility by two months.

Biden administration officials have said they would follow the science on additional vaccines and had set the week of Sept. 20 as a goal in order to prepare for more inoculations.

Biden, who is scheduled to speak at 9:45 a.m. (1345 GMT) at the White House, has said he will receive a third booster dose when available.

-reuters-

Sweeping new vaccine mandates for 100 million Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant.

Speaking at the White House, Biden sharply criticized the roughly 80 million Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.

“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

Republican leaders — and some union chiefs, too — said Biden was going too way too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers, a certain sign of legal challenges to come.

Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that “Biden and the radical Democrats ... have declared war against capitalism (and) thumbed their noses at the Constitution.”

AFL-CIO National President Everett Kelley insisted that “changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.

Biden is also signing an executive order to require vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.

Biden announced the new requirements in a Thursday afternoon address from the White House as part of a new “action plan” to address the latest rise in coronavirus cases and the stagnating pace of COVID-19 shots that has raised doubts among the public over his handling of the pandemic.

Just two months ago Biden prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus. Now, despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two-and-a-half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year.

“We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while,” Biden said of the current state of the pandemic.

After months of using promotions to drive the vaccination rate, Biden is taking a much firmer hand, as he aides blamed people who have not yet received shots for the sharp rise in cases that is killing more than 1,000 people per day and imperiling a fragile economic rebound.

In addition to the vaccination requirements, Biden moved to double federal fines for airline passengers who refuse to wear masks on flights or to maintain face covering requirements on federal property in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Biden announced that the federal government will work to increase the supply of virus tests, and that the White House has secured concessions from retailers including Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger to sell at-home testing kits at cost beginning this week.

The administration was also sending additional federal support to assist schools in safely operating, including additional funding for testing. And Biden will call for large entertainment venues and arenas to require vaccinations or proof of a negative test for entry.

The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said. The White House did not immediately say when it would take effect, but said workers would have sufficient time to get vaccinated.

The rule would also require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will extend a vaccination requirement issued earlier this summer — for nursing home staff — to other healthcare settings including hospitals, home-health agencies and dialysis centers.

Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services will require vaccinations in Head Start Programs, as well as schools run by the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Education, affecting about 300,000 employees.

Biden’s order for executive branch workers and contractors includes exceptions for workers seeking religious or medical exemptions from vaccination, according to Psaki. Federal workers and contractors will have 75 days to get fully vaccinated. Workers who don’t comply will be referred to their agencies’ human resources departments for counseling and discipline, to include potential termination.

“We would like to be a model” to other organizations and business around country, Psaki said of the federal workforce.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in August found 55% of Americans in favor of requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with 21% opposed. Similar majorities also backed vaccine mandates for health care workers, teachers working at K-12 schools and workers who interact with the public, as at restaurants and stores.

Biden has encouraged COVID-19 vaccine requirements in settings like schools, workplaces and university campuses, and the White House hopes the strengthened federal mandate will inspire more businesses to follow suit. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Board of Education was expected to vote on requiring all students 12 and older to be fully vaccinated in the the nation’s second-largest school district.

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in late July it was requiring that all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as its managers who travel within the U.S. be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. But the company stopped short of requiring shots for its frontline workers.

CVS Health said in late August it would require certain employees who interact with patients to be fully vaccinated by the end of October. That includes nurses, care managers and pharmacists.

In the government, several federal agencies have previously announced vaccine requirements for much of their staffs, particularly those in healthcare roles like the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pentagon moved last month to require all servicemembers to get vaccinated. Combined, the White House estimates those requirements cover 2.5 million Americans. Thursday’s order is expected to impact nearly 2 million more federal workers and potentially millions of contractors.

Biden’s measures should help, but what’s really needed is a change in mindset for many people, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“There is an aspect to this now that has to do with our country being so divided,” said Sharfstein. “This has become so politicized that people can’t see the value of a vaccination that can save their lives. Our own divisions are preventing us from ending a pandemic.”

American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal employees, said that while it strongly encourages vaccinations, workers should have a say in new mandates affecting them.

“Put simply, workers deserve a voice in their working conditions,” said national President Everett Kelley. “We expect to bargain over this change prior to implementation, and we urge everyone who is able to get vaccinated as soon as they can do so.”

Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, called the mandate for federal workers “ill conceived,” saying, “Vaccination should be promoted through education and encouragement – not coercion.”

More than 177 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but confirmed cases have shot up in recent weeks to an average of about 140,000 per day with on average about 1,000 deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the spread — and the vast majority of severe illness and death — is occurring among those not yet fully vaccinated. So-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people occur, but tend to be far less dangerous.

Federal officials are moving ahead with plans to begin administering booster shots of the mRNA vaccines to bolster protection against the more transmissible delta variant. Last month Biden announced plans to make them available beginning on Sept. 20, but only the Pfizer vaccine will likely have received regulatory approval for a third dose by that time.

Officials are aiming to administer the booster shots about eight months after the second dose of the two-dose vaccines.

Associated Press writers Anne D’Innocenzio, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Hannah Fingerhut contributed.

-Associated Press-

Poland to vaccinate 12-year-olds, join EU COVID certificate scheme

WARSAW - Poland will offer COVID-19 vaccinations to children aged 12-15 from June 7 and is also joining an EU certificate scheme to make travel easier, ministers said on Tuesday.

The European Commission on Friday authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in that age group after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said the shot was safe and effective for them.

"Due to the decisions of the European Medicines Agency and the recommendation of the Medical Council, we have made a decision that from June 7, vaccinations of children aged 12 to 15 will begin. This is 2.5 million students," Michal Dworczyk, the minister charge of the country's vaccination drive, told a news conference.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski also said that as of Tuesday Poland was joining the European Union's COVID certificate program, intended to make travelling in the bloc easier.

This makes Poland one of the first seven countries to join the program, which will formally start on July 1, he said.

"Poland is among the leaders who will be able to issue these certificates for the use of their citizens from June 1," Niedzielski said.

-reuters-

Indonesia orders 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for private inoculations

JAKARTA - Indonesia expects to receive 20.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna Inc and China's Sinopharm from the second quarter to use in a private vaccination scheme, the head of a state pharmaceutical firm said on Monday.

Indonesia authorized one of the world's first private vaccination programs last month to run alongside its national drive, enabling firms to buy state-procured vaccines for their staff in Southeast Asia's biggest country.

While the plan is expected to speed up the pace of inoculation in the world's fourth most populous country, some health experts have warned it could worsen inequity.

Honesti Basyir, CEO of Bio Farma, told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that it had ordered 15 million doses from China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and 5.2 million from Moderna.

The Sinopharm vaccine could arrive by the end of the second quarter, and the Moderna shot in the third quarter, he said.

Indonesia aims to inoculate 181.5 million people within a year in an effort to reach herd immunity in a vaccination drive that began in January.

The country has suffered one of Asia's worst coronavirus epidemics, with more than 1.4 million cases and over 38,000 deaths so far.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry had pushed the government to authorize the private inoculation drive.

More than 11,500 companies have signed up for the plan, which would see some 7.4 million people vaccinated, Rosan P. Roeslani, head of the business group, told the same hearing on Monday.

The program would allow employees of participating companies, plus their family members, to receive free vaccinations at privately-run health centers with shots distributed by Bio Farma.

Indonesia's food and drug agency is currently reviewing the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use approval, its chief Penny K. Lukito told the hearing.

The agency has made no mention of the approval status of the Moderna vaccine.

-reuters-

Malaysia to start COVID-19 vaccination drive early as first doses arrive

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia moved up its COVID-19 inoculation drive by two days as the first batch of vaccines arrived in the Southeast Asian nation on Sunday.

Malaysia aims to vaccinate at least 80% of its 32 million people within a year as it pushes to revive an economy that, slammed by coronavirus-related curbs, recorded its worst slump in over two decades in 2020.

It has imposed more lockdowns this year amid a fresh wave of coronavirus infections. The country has recorded 280,272 cases and 1,051 deaths.

A total of 312,390 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were delivered to Malaysia on Sunday morning, with more expected in coming weeks.

"The second delivery will be made on Feb. 26, and we will continue to receive (Pfizer) deliveries every two weeks until it is completed," Science Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said in a virtual news conference.

Malaysia has secured 32 million doses from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Vaccine doses from China's Sinovac Biotech are scheduled to be delivered in bulk on Feb. 27, pending approval from local regulators, Khairy said.

The national vaccine rollout will begin Wednesday, earlier than initially scheduled, with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Health Ministry Director General Noor Hisham Abdullah set to receive the first doses, Khairy said.

-reuters-

Japan launches COVID-19 vaccinations as Olympics approach

TOKYO - Japan began administering COVID-19 vaccinations on Wednesday, starting with health workers in Tokyo before expanding the rollout nationwide as the clock ticks down to the Summer Olympics.

The country has been slow to launch inoculations against the coronavirus, starting its program later than at least 70 other countries as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's public support dwindles amid criticism of a sluggish pandemic response.

Speaking in a parliamentary committee meeting, Suga reiterated that vaccines will be the "decisive factor" in fighting the coronavirus and vowed to move forward with the rollout while keeping the public informed.

Vaccinations are due to take place at 100 medical facilities across the country by next week, with specialized freezers already in place to store the vaccine developed by US drugmaker Pfizer Inc. and Germany's BioNTech SE at subzero temperatures.

Of the initial group of 40,000 health workers, 20,000 will participate in a study to track side effects potentially caused by the vaccine and the frequency with which they occur.

They will be asked to keep daily records for 7 weeks after taking the first of 2 shots. The shots will be administered 3 weeks apart.

Twelve staff, including 3 doctors and 5 nurses at the state-run Tokyo Medical Center, were inoculated on Wednesday with none immediately feeling any side effects.

Hospital head Kazuhiro Araki, who was first in the country to receive the shot, said he hopes participating in the study will "help both staff and patients prevent infections."

A further 3.7 million front-line health workers are to begin being inoculated in March, followed by 36 million people aged 65 or older from April.

People with preexisting conditions such as diabetes or heart disease and those working at elderly care facilities will come next, and then finally the general population.

The minister in charge of vaccination efforts, Taro Kono, said Tuesday that foreign residents will become eligible for the free shots in the same order of priority as Japanese citizens, as long as they are registered with a municipality.

Japan received the first shipment of about 386,000 doses from Pfizer's factory in Belgium last week and granted fast-track approval for domestic use on Sunday.

Kono told a press conference that the second shipment had been cleared by the European Union under its new vaccine export controls and was expected to arrive next week, but declined to say how many doses it would contain.

-Kyodo News-

Spain's COVID-19 death toll rises by over 500; hospitals under pressure

MADRID — Spain's death toll from COVID-19 rose by 513 on Friday to 58,319, in one of the highest one-day increases since the first wave of the pandemic, health ministry data showed.

It said 38,118 new infections had also been detected, off last week's record of 44,357.

And pressure on hospitals continued to rise, with 44% of all intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients.

In another alarming sign, the Madrid region reported on Friday an outbreak in a nursing home that has caused 11 deaths and infected all its 48 residents, as well as 17 staff.

El Pais newspaper said the home, in the mountains near the capital, had escaped the deadly first wave that tore through care homes across Spain in March and April last year.

Meanwhile, doctors complained about recent delays in vaccine deliveries that forced several regions, including Madrid, to stop vaccinating new people from priority groups, such as medics, and only administer second shots to those who have already received a first dose.

"The inability...to deliver the necessary doses at the required speed has been a crushing blow, at least for health workers," said Javier Marco, medical director of Madrid's Isabel Zendal hospital, adding they again felt unprotected and "at the mercy of the pandemic for an unknown length of time".

European countries are grappling with broad vaccine delays, at least temporarily, as all Western vaccine makers with approved shots - Moderna, Pfizer and its German partner BioNtech, and AstraZeneca - fall behind their initial delivery targets.

"We have been under tremendous pressure since March, with very bad living conditions, fearing that we might infect our families at any moment," Marco said. "What keeps us going is the need society has for us."

-reuters-

UK starts mass COVID vaccination program

LONDON - Britain on Tuesday hailed a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, as it begins the biggest vaccination program in the country's history with a new COVID-19 jab.

The first patients in line on what has been dubbed "V-Day" -- the over-80s, care home workers and at-risk frontline health and social care staff -- will roll up their sleeves for an initial dose from early morning.

They will then require a second jab in 21 days' time.

Last week, Britain became the first country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.5 million worldwide.

Britain has been one of the worst-affected countries in the world, with more than 61,000 deaths in the outbreak from 1.6 million cases.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent days in intensive care with COVID-19 earlier this year, called it a "huge step forward in the UK's fight against coronavirus."

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has offered to have the jab on live television to allay public fears, said the rollout was a "key moment" that would protect the most vulnerable.

The head of the state-run National Health Service in England, Simon Stevens, said it was a "decisive turning point" against the "greatest health challenge" since the NHS was founded in 1948.

Regulatory approval for the vaccine was given last Wednesday, sparking a race against time to prepare scores of vaccination centers across the country.

The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the jab -- enough to vaccinate 20 million people -- with 800,000 in the first batch.

Up to 4 million doses are expected by the end of December.

QUEEN COULD LEAD WAY

The mass vaccination drive is a coordinated response by all 4 nations of the UK -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- which normally set their own health policies.

The public has been largely favorable to the rapid approval of the vaccine, but ministers and health professionals are aware they still need to combat mistrust.

The independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency maintains that no corners were cut and its assessment and approval procedures met stringent international norms.

NHS England said thousands had already been given the jab during trials with no serious side effects.

Nevertheless, it has been reported Queen Elizabeth II, who at 94 is among those first in the line for the vaccination because of her age, could front a public awareness campaign urging compliance.

The government said it will hand out vaccine cards to remind people to get the booster after 3 weeks, but insisted it was not introducing immunity certificates.

'MARGINAL IMPACT' IN WINTER

The chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the vaccine will as a result only have a "marginal impact" on hospital numbers over the winter months.

Johnson called for patience and urged the public to stick to strict social distancing guidelines to prevent a spike in cases, particular as rules are relaxed over Christmas.

Health officials have already run into a logistical headache about how to administer the vaccine to elderly or infirm care home residents.

The vaccine needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit), leaving hospitals and other medical hubs as the only places able to deal with such ultra-low temperatures.

With the Pfizer-BioNTech drug made in Belgium, concerns have also been raised about potential disruption to supply when Britain leaves the European Union's single market and customs union.

But the UK government said the military is on stand-by to air-lift the vaccine if there is any border disruption from Jan. 1.

The bulk of Britain's vaccine requirements are expected to be met by a jab developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, which is awaiting regulatory approval.

The government has ordered an initial 100 million doses of the drug, which is cheaper to manufacture, and easier to store and transport using conventional fridges.

Agence France-Presse

Japan to secure COVID-19 vaccines by 1st half of 2021: Abe

TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday Japan would aim to secure COVID-19 vaccinations for all citizens by the first half of 2021.

Abe announced at a government meeting a set of measures against the novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness, including increasing the country's virus testing capacity ahead of the flu season.

The measures will include greatly expanding the country's testing capacity to conduct mass testing on health care providers and nursing home staff, who are seeing a rise in new infections.

The government will review its guidelines on recommending hospitalization of COVID-19 patients, prioritizing those with severe symptoms, and asking those with mild or no symptoms to self-isolate at home or in designated lodging facilities.

It wants to ensure that enough hospital beds are secured for severe cases in anticipation of a scenario in which Japan is also hit by an influenza outbreak in the winter.

Furthermore, there are plans to create a system that will allow residents to easily access the vaccines at their place of residence, alongside implementing relief measures in the event of side effects or other health problems caused by the vaccines.

The government is looking to cover the cost of compensation that vaccine manufacturers may face if health issues occur.

Vaccine purchases will be financed by reserve funds from the budget of the current fiscal year to March 2021.

Kyodo News

Pakistan says Facebook to help in fight against polio

Pakistan says Facebook will help the country in its fight against polio after authorities blamed anti-vaccine content posted last year on the social network site for a leap in the number of cases.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio has not been eradicated, but a years-long effort began to show fruit with a major drop in cases from 2016.

By 2018 just 12 cases had been recorded, but to the dismay of Pakistani authorities and the World Health Organization, that number soared to 136 last year. 

Pakistani officials quickly tied the surge to a slew of fake news reports and videos claiming many children had been killed by the vaccine that garnered thousands of views and shares on social media. 

They called on Facebook do more to remove harmful anti-vaccine content from the site, saying it was jeopardizing eradication initiatives and putting the lives of polio workers at risk. 

Health authorities later said Facebook had removed dozens such videos.

This week a delegation from the company visited Islamabad and reaffirmed their commitment to the campaign, a Pakistani government statement said. 

"We stand behind the national and global efforts to create a polio-free world and will continue to support these efforts," Rafael Frankel, a Facebook regional director, was quoted as saying in a statement released by Pakistan's ministry of health.

Dr Zafar Mirza, a Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on health, highlighted the importance of communicating correct health information online and stressed "the need to counter harmful content on social media".

Facebook did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Vaccination campaigns have faced stubborn resistance for years in Pakistan, with many refusing to have their children inoculated because of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Islamist opposition to all forms of inoculation grew after the CIA organised a fake vaccination drive to help track down Al Qaeda's former leader Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

As Pakistan tries to reach its goal of eliminating polio, the growing global movement against vaccinations, fuelled by social media, has presented a new challenge.

Afghanistan and Nigeria are the two other countries where the disease has not been entirely eradicated, although the latter is expected to be declared polio-free later this year.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Judge upholds New York City's mandatory measles vaccination order

NEW YORK - A Brooklyn judge on Thursday ruled against a group of parents who challenged New York City's recently imposed mandatory measles vaccination order, rejecting their arguments that the city's public health authority exceeded its authority.

In a 6-page decision rendered hours after a hearing on the matter, Judge Lawrence Knipel denied the parents' petition seeking to lift the vaccination order, imposed last week to stem the worst measles outbreak to hit the city since 1991.

The judge sided with municipal health officials who defended the order as a rare but necessary step to contain a surge in the highly contagious disease that has infected at least 329 people so far, most of them children from Orthodox Jewish communities in the borough of Brooklyn.

Another 222 cases have been diagnosed elsewhere in New York state, mostly in a predominantly ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Rockland County, northwest of Manhattan.

The New York outbreaks are part of a larger resurgence of measles across the country, with at least 555 cases confirmed in 20 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health experts say the virus, which can cause severe complications and even death, has spread mostly among school-age children whose parents declined to get them vaccinated. Most profess philosophical or religious reasons, or cite concerns - debunked by medical science - that the three-way measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine may cause autism.

The judge rejected the parents' contention that the vaccination order was excessive or coercive, noting it does not call for forcibly administering the vaccine to those who refuse it.

He also dismissed assertions in the petition disputing the "clear and present danger" of the outbreak. "Vaccination is known to extinguish the fire of contagion," the judge said.

SECRET IDENTITIES

The vaccination order, which was extended this week, requires residents of certain affected Brooklyn neighborhoods to obtain the MMR vaccine unless they can otherwise demonstrate immunity to measles, or face a fine.

The court challenge was brought in Brooklyn's Supreme Court by five people identified only as parents living in the affected neighborhoods. Their identities were kept confidential to protect their children's' privacy, their lawyers said.

In court on Thursday, they told Knipel the city had overstepped its authority and that quarantining the infected would be a preferable approach.

Robert Krakow, an attorney for the parents, estimated that just 0.0006 percent of the population of Brooklyn and Queens had measles. "That's not an epidemic," he said. "It's not Ebola. It's not smallpox."

The health department's lawyers argued that quarantining was ineffective because people carrying the virus can be contagious before symptoms appear.

The judge cited 39 cases diagnosed in Michigan that have been traced to an individual traveling from the Williamsburg community at the epicenter of Brooklyn's outbreak. The surge in measles there originated with an unvaccinated child who became infected on a visit to Israel, where the highly contagious virus is also running rampant.

The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first quarter of 2019 to 112,163 compared with the same period last year, the World Health Organization said this week. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Low vaccination rates, global outbreaks fuel US measles spread

A measles outbreak that has stricken at least 225 people in New York state since October began with a traveler who visited Israel during the Jewish high holidays and returned to a predominantly ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Rockland County.

A similar pattern unfolded three months later and nearly 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away when a person who visited Eastern Europe returned to a community with strong ties to a local church group in Vancouver, Washington. More than 50 people fell ill there.

In both instances, US travelers picked up measles in foreign countries where the highly contagious disease was running rampant and brought it back to places where vaccination rates were too low by U.S. public health standards, setting off the worst outbreaks seen in those states in decades.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says New York’s outbreak marks the highest tally of imported cases since measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000.

The two outbreaks appear to be winding down, health officials say, after concerted efforts to pinpoint the origins and isolate and inoculate those who were exposed but unprotected and educate parents who had resisted vaccines.

The disease has spread mostly among school-age children whose parents declined to get them vaccinated. Most cited philosophical or religious reasons, or concerns - debunked by medical science - that the three-way vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) could cause autism, authorities said.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said another key factor was mere “complacency” in an age where the potential ravages of measles are unfamiliar to parents who came of age after the vaccine was introduced in 1957.

In Rockland County, the suburb north of Manhattan accounting for the bulk of cases, the state has vaccinated 15,000 children since the outbreak began there last autumn, Zucker said. The Brooklyn borough of New York City was another hot spot.

Still, officials say the measles crisis in New York and Washington states offer a lesson about the importance of maintaining a minimum level of “herd” immunization against dangerous, preventable diseases such as measles.

It also highlights the global nature of disease control, in which a hot spot of infection in one country can ignite a distant outbreak in an immunization-weak spot of another, said Dr. Scott Lindquist, Washington’s top epidemiologist.

Here are some key facts about measles and immunization, according to public health experts and the CDC.

WHAT IMMUNIZATION RATES ARE IDEAL?

A 95 percent rate of immunization is required to provide sufficient “herd” protection in a given population. Rates as low as 60 percent were found in parts of New York where measles spread, Zucker said.

HOW BAD CAN MEASLES GET?

Symptoms typically include high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, followed by tiny white spots inside the mouth and a red rash that can cover the body.

Serious and potentially fatal complications, especially in young children and pregnant women, can include pneumonia and swelling of the brain. Ear infections occur in about 10 percent of children with measles and can lead to permanent hearing loss.

One rare but fatal complication is subacute panencephalitis (SSPE), which can attack the central nervous system seven to 10 years after a person has recovered from measles.

HOW CONTAGIOUS IS MEASLES?

Measles is spread through casual contact with the virus, which can linger and remain infectious in the air of an enclosed space for up to two hours after it is breathed out by someone carrying the disease. The rate of transmission from an infected person to another individual nearby who lacks immunity is about 90 percent.

ORIGINS OF LATEST OUTBREAKS?

Health authorities say the strain of the virus identified in Washington state matches the one circulating widely in Ukraine since last year. The New York outbreak has been tracked back to separate flare-ups of measles in Israel and in Eastern Europe.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Measles cases in Europe highest in a decade as some parents refuse vaccination

LONDON - Europe had a record number of measles cases last year, in part due to a growing number of pockets where parents are refusing vaccination for their children, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

At the same time, the WHO said, record numbers of children are getting the vaccine - offering hope that the rise in infections may not last.

"Progress has been uneven between and within countries, leaving increasing clusters of susceptible individuals unprotected, and resulting in a record number of people affected by the virus in 2018," it said in a statement.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause hearing loss and brain disorders in children and, in severe cases, can kill.

Vaccination coverage needs to be around 95 percent to prevent the virus circulating in communities - so-called "herd immunity".

In many countries, anti-vaccine campaigners seek to dissuade parents from getting their children immunised, despite strong scientific evidence that vaccines are safe and effective.

In Italy, the co-ruling anti-establishment Five Star Movement has questioned the safety of some vaccines and loudly denounced efforts to make vaccinations mandatory.

In the WHO's European region, which covers nearly 900 million people, some 82,600 in 47 countries contracted measles last year - the highest number this decade. Of those, 72 cases were fatal. Six of the 53 countries did not report.

In 34 of the countries, estimated coverage with a second dose of measles vaccine was below 95 percent.

"(Immunisation) gaps at local level still offer an open door to the virus," the WHO's European director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said in a statement.

Professor Arne Akbar, president of the British Society for Immunology, said the figures were "extremely concerning".

Heidi Larson, a specialist in vaccines and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the increase in cases was a "wake-up call on the importance of building confidence in vaccination".

A report published by the European Commission last year and compiled by a team led by Larson found that measles immunisation coverage has fallen in 12 EU countries since 2010, and that seven out of the 10 countries with the lowest vaccine confidence in the world are in Europe. (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

source: news.abs-cbn.com