Channel Islanders reminded of MMR vaccination following UK death
She said: "While Jersey has reassuring MMR vaccination coverage, we know a small number of islanders have not had both doses. "This puts them at risk, so I encourage all islanders to make sure that they and their children are fully vaccinated."Ms Baker added: "Measles is circulating in parts of the UK and Europe, so please before you travel, we are calling all parents and guardians to make sure their children are up to date with their two MMR doses."
Vaccine 'strongly encouraged'
The States of Guernsey said it was aware of high measles cases in parts of the UK and in Europe.It said the disease could cause serious problems if it spread to other parts of the body, including pneumonia, meningitis, blindness and seizures. Dr Nicola Brink, Director of Public Health, said the MMR vaccine was available free of charge for those up to the age of 25.She said: "Our data demonstrates that the number of children receiving two doses of a measles containing vaccine is reassuringly high. "However, we know that some families have chosen not to have their children vaccinated against measles and we would like to take this opportunity to strongly encourage them to take up this offer. "This is particularly important with the circulation of measles in neighbouring jurisdictions, and the possibility that many people are travelling over the summer break."
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Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Map reveals where you are most at risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases... where does YOUR state rank?
Americans living in the south could be most at risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a new study reveals. Louisiana had the country's highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which include chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV. It suffered 1,200 STD cases per 100,000 residents, making it the state most stricken by diseases that spread through sex, skin-to-skin contact and from mother to child during birth. In particular, Louisiana had the highest rate of chlamydia, America's most common STD that affects 1.6million adults every year. Mississippi and Alaska followed close behind with 1,084 and 1,067 STD cases per 100,000 people, respectively. Alaska also recorded the most instances of gonorrhea, which experts have previously blamed on weak public health infrastructure and high rates of substance abuse. It's the same state where a woman died earlier this year of disseminated gonococcal infection (DGI), which occurs when the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea invades the bloodstream and travels to vital organs. Meanwhile, Georgia, which had the fourth-highest overall STD rate, recorded the most HIV cases with 25.5 per 100,000. South Dakota rounded out the top five, recording the highest rate of syphilis infections. On the other hand, states in New England had the lowest STD rates, with Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine falling to the bottom of the list. The rankings, provided by a new study from Invigor Medical, used the latest CDC data - from 2023 - to calculate STD rates for all 50 states. The researchers found many states ranking in the top 10 have limited access to sexual health clinics and emphasize abstinence education as a primary method to prevent pregnancy and STDs, which could be drivers behind their higher rates. And many states do not mandate sex education in schools, meaning millions of students miss out on potentially life-saving information. States like Alaska and South Dakota also have higher numbers of outbreaks among Indigenous populations, which are more likely to have limited access to care. People in the New England region, on the other hand, typically have higher household incomes and rates of insurance, making them better able to access care and sexual education. The report also found women in the US are 10 percent more likely than men to be diagnosed with an STD, with a rate of 902 cases per 100,000 compared to 819. This could be because women are screened more often during routine reproductive health visits, while cases in men may go undiagnosed. The vagina also has a moist, thin lining that is easily penetrable, making it prone to infections. Louisiana had the country's highest rate of chlamydia with 792 cases per 100,000 residents. This added up to 36,242 diagnoses in 2023. Nationwide, chlamydia affects 1.6million Americans every year. Common symptoms of chlamydia include abnormal or foul-smelling vaginal discharge, pelvic pain, abdominal tenderness, pain during intercourse, irregular bleeding, and fever. However, less than half of infections show symptoms, and many are asymptomatic. Mississippi followed close behind overall and had the second-highest rate of chlamydia, with 701 cases per 100,000. Alaska recorded 1,067 STDs per 100,000 people in 2023 and had the highest rate of gonorrhea at 311 cases per 100,000. This adds up to about 2,280. Untreated gonorrhea can lead to serious health issues, including pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. And while the infection can usually be easily treated, some strains are resistant to commonly used antibiotics - making them harder to clear. Earlier this year in Alaska, an unnamed woman in her 50s died from disseminated gonococcal infection (DGI) after contracting gonorrhea. This causes her to go into sepsis and heart failure. In DGI, gonorrhea infections travel to the bloodstream and infect organs throughout the body due to the infection going untreated. It's thought to occur in just 0.5 percent of gonorrhea cases. She is one of eight Alaskans to be identified with DGI since January of this year, the state health department said. The above chart from Invigor Medical shows the rate of STDs in the US by age group and sex Georgia, which had the fourth-highest rate of STDs overall, topped the list for HIV infections. It had an HIV rate of 25.5 per 100,000, totaling 2,359 cases. Nationwide, the HIV rate is 14 cases per 100,000 people. HIV, which stands for human immunodeficiency virus, attacks the body's immune system and leaves it unable to fight off foreign invaders. Left untreated, it can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Georgia's high rate could be from recent HIV outbreaks in the Atlanta area. South Dakota rounded out the top five with an overall STD rate of 1,015 per 100,000. It also had the highest rate of syphilis at 223 per 100,000 or roughly 2,000 cases. Syphilis among all ages is on the rise nationwide, increasing nearly 80 percent over the past five years, and the surge is worrying public health officials, as the disease can advance to damage the brain, nerves, eyes, and heart if it goes untreated. Symptoms begin with small open sores on the genitals, mouth, or rectum, as well as enlarged lymph nodes. In the second stage, a skin rash develops, as well as genitals sores, fever, muscle and joint pain, vision changes, and loss of appetite. When the infection advances further, it can inflame and damage heart valves and slowly degrade the brain, causing personality changes, memory loss, difficulty making decisions, and strokes. On the other end of the spectrum, Vermont recorded the fewest STD cases with a rate of 241 per 100,000. Schools in the state have more robust sexual health education programs than in other areas like the south. Its largest demographic is also over 60, a group historically less affected by STDs.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
Health experts warn Trump cuts to the CDC could hurt overdose prevention: ‘A step backwards'
Public health officials across the country working to prevent overdose deaths may have just a month to prepare for up to $140m in funding cuts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the Trump administration has reportedly withheld. US overdose deaths began to decline for the first time in 2023 after climbing for over two decades. The CDC's Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) cooperative agreement, launched in 2019 during the first Trump administration, provides funding for overdose 'prevention and surveillance strategies'. Public health officials emphasized to the Guardian that to effectively reduce fatal overdoses, agencies must work in tandem to track substance use disorders, overdoses and changes in the drug supply, and to implement interventions, like distributing the overdose reversal drug naloxone. OD2A funding made this kind of robust response possible. The Biden administration expanded the program in 2023, giving five year grants to 90 state and local public health departments. 'The funding has largely been used for surveillance, in other words, to obtain data on the opioid crisis that informs a public health response to the problem,' said Dr Andrew Kolodny, medical director for the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University. 'In general, our surveillance data for the opioid crisis is awful. I would even say that one of the reasons that the opioid crisis is as severe as it is, and why, up until recently, overdose deaths have continued to go up pretty much year after year for about 25 years, is because we had very poor surveillance of the problem.' But now, health officials worry the money could run out at the end of the first two year cycle on 1 September. Dr Jenny Hua, interim deputy commissioner for Chicago's department of public health (CDPH), which receives $3.4m annually in OD2A funding, says they're preparing for the worst. 'We are doing scenario planning. The preferred scenario is that we have the entire award starting the first of August,' she said, though she's uncertain whether that's likely. Hua noted that what she's been 'told about this money is that at least half of it is available next year. The problem is that for a number of [the CDC's] cooperative agreements with local health departments and state health departments, they're receiving that money in monthly increments, which has never happened before.' She also said that the CDC now doesn't have enough money at once to distribute. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said in a statement that CDC is committed to the O2DA program and that: 'We are working closely with our funding partners to make within the next month, at a minimum, initial grant awards, which may contain less than the full-year of funding in the first incremental award … This incremental funding approach is not specific to OD2A.' Hua said 'that sort of fog is making it incredibly difficult for us to make funding decisions, to allocate our resources.' The CDPH has used OD2A funding to make same day substance use disorder treatment available to patients through telehealth, and had plans to expand recovery housing for treatment. 'Do you pull the plug? What tea leaves are we supposed to read, to know what course of action to take?' Hao wondered. Kolodny said it's especially important to keep funding surveillance of multiple factors related to overdose deaths because 'right now, you can talk to five different experts, and you'll get five different explanations for why the deaths are coming down. Nobody really knows, right? And that's because we don't have good surveillance data,' he said, 'and it's about to get worse.' Surveillance means tracking not only the number of fatal and non-fatal overdoses in the US, but also the prevalence of substance use disorders, including opioid use disorder. Historically, this has been the mission of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa), which also provides a plethora of other addiction and overdose prevention services, but that agency also faces funding cuts. OD2A funding also went towards surveillance of 'emergency drug threats' which often comes in the form of new adulterants in the street drug supply. Unexpected substances, including tranquilizers like xylazine, and potent synthetic opioids like nitazenes and carfentanil, can cause overdoses and poisonings that are more dangerous because they aren't yet well understood. Still, many health departments across the country do not monitor the street drug supply. Street drug surveillance can help officials intervene rapidly when overdoses increase. Partly thanks to OD2A funding, Chicago health officials immediately became aware of a spike in overdoses on the city's west side last May. Lab analysis revealed the spike was related to the presence of medetomidine, a potent veterinary tranquilizer, in the street drug supply. In June, the CDPH launched the Summer Opioid Response Incident Command System, a coordinated effort involving public messaging about the contaminated drug supply, distribution of naloxone and drug testing kits, and expanding access to treatment. This effort reduced overdose related emergency responses by 23% last summer compared to the year before, according to a report on the program. The Los Angeles department of public health also uses OD2A funding for 'community-based drug checking', according to a statement from a spokesperson; 'The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recently announced a 22% decline in drug-related overdose deaths and poisonings in 2024, the most significant drop in LA County history,' adding that 'the CDC Overdose to Action LOCAL grant award contributed to these successes.' A spokesperson for the Maryland department of health said that cuts could mean layoffs for 28 public health workers, which would mean they no longer have the capacity to track non-fatal overdoses and will lose most of their capacity to track fatal overdoses. Tracking the number of people who die of overdoses is the 'bare minimum' of surveillance, according to Kolodny, who noted that funding cuts are 'frustrating' to witness. 'Trump has been especially popular in some of the regions of the country that have suffered most from the opioid crisis. So one might think that his administration would be doing everything it can to bring this problem to an end. And in my opinion, this is a step backwards,' he said. Funding overdose prevention doesn't just save lives, it also saves money, Kolodny said: 'The opioid crisis is a trillion dollar a year problem, and I'm not making up that number. That's a number that comes in part from the cost analysis on the number of lives that are lost.' Lives will continue to be lost until we can really understand what drives overdose deaths, Kolodny said: 'Without the data, we're shooting in the dark.'
BBC News
19 hours ago
- BBC News
East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire parents warned about measles jab
Health officials are urging parents in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to check their children are fully vaccinated against figures reveal uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab has fallen across the two GP Dr Nathalie Dukes said: "The evidence is clear that the increase in the number of people who are getting infected is coinciding with the rates of vaccination dropping."Dr Dukes said she believed one of the reasons behind the fall in vaccination numbers is that people have "forgotten how serious conditions like measles can be". She said: "We have come to the luxurious position where up until recently these conditions were not really around anymore."We didn't see many cases so it was out of our remit of relevance to a degree. "Information overload is another factor. I think people have got a bit vaccine fatigue since Covid in terms of being told what to do and in terms of concerns, so people have maybe taken that to childhood vaccinations as well."Measles is a highly contagious disease spread when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes and it can lead to serious and potentially life-threatening complications in some people, including infections of the lungs and target set by the World Health Organisation to prevent the spread of measles through herd immunity is a 95% overall vaccination NHS figures show 83% of children received their second dose of the MMR vaccine by the age of five in North Lincolnshire and Hull in 2023/24 - down from 91% in 2013/ is also 83% in Lincolnshire - 4% lower than 10 years ago, while rates have also dropped by 4% to 91% in North East 2024, there were more than 2,900 confirmed measles cases in England - the highest number of cases recorded annually since the beginning of this year, there have been 529 confirmed cases reported in England, according to figures by the UK Health Security July, a child died at Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital after contracting the experienced an outbreak, with government figures showing 26 confirmed cases between January and June, while Bristol had recorded the most cases to date outside London with 11% of the national total. Speaking at a children's play centre in Hull, mum-of-two Lily Kemp said it was important to make sure children were fully vaccinated against infections, such as said: "I think social media doesn't help because people share their experiences and some might comment on the short-term effects rather than the long-term benefits of what they're protecting against if they get vaccinated."A joint statement from the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and Hull City Council said: "While the majority of children are protected, there remain pockets of low uptake that increase the risk of measles outbreaks."Vaccination remains the best protection against measles, mumps and rubella."We urge all parents and carers to check their child's Red Book or contact their GP if they are unsure whether their child is up to date."Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
