NZ Urges Immunisation After Measles Outbreak

Ministry issues warning on measles
5:00PM Monday Jul 20, 2009

A rapid rise in the number of cases of measles is a reminder for parents to make sure that their children's immunisations are up to date, say health officials.

There have been 90 notified measles cases so far this year - more than seven times higher than the total number of cases for all of last year, according to the Ministry of Health.

The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was very effective if children got it on time at 15 months and four years of age, and once fully immunised, 90 to 95 per cent of children were protected from measles, said the ministry's chief adviser for population health, Greg Simmons.

"Talk to your family doctor or practice nurse if your child is behind with an immunisation - it's never too late to catch up," he said.

Source

There has been a lot of reassurance in the NZ media lately, that it is vital that your children are vaccinated. In the case of Measles, we have the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine which is often given to children at 15 months, then again at 4 years old. The latest measles outbreak has been blamed on children not being immunised.

Here is an excerpt from another article from the same news source

Half of all the children who had contracted measles since the outbreak began were not immunised.

"Our investigations have excluded that a defective batch of measles vaccine was a cause of this outbreak.

"We are now investigating other reasons why children who have

been immunised may have still caught measles," Dr Pink said.

Measles Outbreak in Canterbury Continues

So half the people who contracted measles weren't immunised. That means half the people that caught it WERE immunised.
If thats the case, how do they keep saying the vaccine is 90% to 95% effective?
It's hard to say, as we don't know what kind of ratio of the children are vaccinated.

But it's not just the MMR which is being recommended and reassured that it's safe, but also the Gardasil vaccine being regularly reassured.
Govt says cervical cancer vaccine safe
While most schools offer this vaccine to their young girls, some have stood up and said they refuse to due to the risk of serious side effects. Some will say that is stupid and the benefits outweigh the risk. But i give a big to them for making a stand, as who knows how effective it actually is, while there are now close to 50 deaths linked to the Gardasil vaccine.
Yet the reassurance in the media continues.

This is all being brought out just before the push for swine flu vaccinations. Is this coincidence, or an actual push to encourage more people to take the vaccines?

I know our neighbours across the ditch in Australia are prepared to start administering the "swine flu" vaccine soon, and I don't think we'll be too far behind. I'm pretty sure there is no way the vaccine will be mandatory, as cases here have been relatively mild (although there have been some deaths, and my heart goes out to the victims families), and people are no longer being tested for it. But why the consistent urge for people to take the vaccines?



[edit on 19-8-2009 by Curious and Concerned]

[edit on 19-8-2009 by Curious and Concerned]

There is a thread, Australians to Be Vaccinated for Swine Flu within 2 weeks which shows that Australia is soon to start immunisations so we are surely not too far behind.

As far as MMR goes, I haven't seen any decent figures to show how effective it actualy is. It is consistently claimed that it is 90 to 95 % effective against measles, but I'm not sure where they pull that figure from.

I wonder if it is actually far less than that, and anyone that gets measles who has had the vaccine is just told "well, your one of the unlucky 5 or 10 %". But as measles is relatively rare, you'd have less than a 95% chance of getting it anyway, with or without the vaccine. Therefore, it would be easy to say the vaccine is working well (even if it's not), because people who are vaccinated rarely get exposed to the virus anyway.

Saw this mentioned on Teletext a few days ago, made me scratch my head somewhat, you haven't mentioned it not sure if i was imagining things but the segment mentioned that they wanted kids that hadn't or weren't going to take the vaccines quarantined to protect those that had been vaccinated... which is odd since being vaccinated, wouldn't they then have no issue with getting it, IF the vaccine actually worked.

Ive had Measles, Chicken pox (real bad layed me out for two weeks nearly, even food apart from oddly enough ice cream tasted like sand) and the Mumps as a kid. Dont believe I was ever vaccinated for them either, and im still here

Theres definitely an odd pattern of countries putting alot of emphasis on vaccination lately compared to previous years. Still cant quite figure out this H1N1 drive to vaccinate especially in Oz since both us and them are leaving the winter flu season behind and so far the swine flu has been almost a complete joke for the two countries.

Something just aint right about it all, alot of fuse and fear, unless they know something about whats up ahead..

Ehm also if you get the measles you are 25% less likely to get cancer.

You can run with that if you please.

I would like to get the measles just to reduce the cancer risk.

Or is it if you dont take the Vaccine for measles you are 25% less likely to get cancer.