It has been a while since I wrote anything science here, as life has been busy after my doctorate degree. However, what happened in Okinawa is really bell ringing, and bring us back to the importance of VACCINATION!!

The measles

Measles is caused by an airborne virus causing an highly contagious disease with no available treatment available. Preventive measure plays a major role in the disease control.

The measles vaccines has developed over 50 years, and resulted over 75% decrease in death from measles between 2000 and 2013. Due to the relatively late discovery, majority of the population whom received the vaccinations are people with age 40 and under.

The MMR vaccine

the MMR vaccine is a combined vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella-combined vaccine, which served to provide protection for individuals who received the vaccine by priming their immune system for those antigen carrying pathogens. The combined vaccine was introduced in 1971, yet the majority of the patients from the outbreak in Japan are between 10 and 30, so what happened?

What happened in Japan?

The MMR vaccine was introduced in 1989 in Japan for mass vaccination program, but because of some cases of the faults in the mumps vaccine components causing meningitis and some neurological adverse conditions after receiving the vaccines, the Japanese government took a much passive role in MMR vaccinations. This caused a vaccine gap for the measles, and partially explains why patients are found between 10-30 despite the general worldwide program were launched prior 1990s. With only 60-70% measles vaccine coverage in Okinawa it is not surprise to see such outbreak.

As a matter of fact, Okinawa wasn't the first time with outbreak of measles, during the 1998 to 1999, over 2300 cases of measles were reported. The Japanese government realize the mistake, and launched catch up programs and in 2006 finally re-enforced the 2-dose MR vaccine program, with the second dose as boosters. Prior to that many individuals only received 1 dose, which exposed them to certain chance to infections despite the vaccination.

What could we do?

Vaccination is always the key to disease control, prevention is always better than treatment. Furthermore, the previous major outbreaks, all death patients are infant. This brings us back to the secondary benefits of vaccination -- the Herd immunity. By not being susceptible, we are able to protect individuals with impaired immune system, like infants, elderly or immunocompromised patients.

Keeping good hygiene is another possible ways to prevent measles but will not protect you when you are exposed to significant virus load.

DON'T PANIC, if you received 2-doses vaccine MR or MMR, you are very safe, and no need to spread FUD about it.

Realising what actually happened in Okinawa, and why we see the measles outbreaks. And compare to what we see nowadays when people have different opinions against vaccinations, are we heading in the right way?

Reference:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180425/p2a/00m/0na/020000c
https://www.hk01.com/即時國際/183036/日本麻疹疫情擴散-源頭沖繩73人確診-東京大阪陸續出現感染個案
https://www.med.or.jp/english/journal/pdf/2010_01/019_023.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles
https://www.visitokinawa.jp/news/information-outbreak-measles-okinawa
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/mmr-vaccine.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3824286/pdf/10156_2013_Article_641.pdf

It has been a while since i wrote science, hope you guys still likes it~ And I like Okinawa a lot so I hope everyone could get out of this outbreak as soon as possible.

A good warm up for some @orientalhub writings by writing something related to Japan~

---

如果你喜歡我的帖子，請upvote並關注我 @biuiam
If you like my posts, please upvote and follow me @biuiam
Cheers