South Carolina Hospitals Aren't Required to Disclose Measles-Related Admissions. That Leaves Doctors in the Dark.

[Nevilledog]

https://www.propublica.org/article/south-carolina-measles-hospital-admissions

In mid-January, an unassuming man in khakis and a button-down shirt walked to a wooden lectern at a school board meeting in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Most chairs in the audience were empty. The man, Tim Smith, was the only person signed up to speak during public comments. He had five minutes.

“I trust that each one of you had a good Christmas and New Year’s,” he began. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing.”

His wife is an assistant teacher at a public elementary school in the county, epicenter of the state’s historic measles outbreak, and shortly before winter break she’d received a notice that a child in her classroom had measles. Given his wife is fully vaccinated, he wasn’t worried.

Then, she began to get sick. And sicker. She got a measles test and, to their shock, it came back positive. She was apparently among the very rare breakthrough infections.

Frightened, they took her to the hospital that night. “My wife was throwing up,” Smith said at the meeting. “She had diarrhea. She couldn’t breathe. All for what? This is — it’s absolute insanity.”

*snip*

[Totally Tunsie]

1. Knowing this, it doesn't hurt to be proactive with regard to immunization levels.

Generally speaking, if someone has had measles in the past or has had a previous vaccination, in most cases the risk of coming down with measles is low, but there can be exceptions.

A simple blood test can confirm immunity level and likelihood. Results are available in a couple of days and the test is covered by insurance. If it's been many years since having measles or being exposed, it's a simple matter to get some assurance of safety and well worth the time.

Once I heard of the outbreak in western SC, I asked my primary care doc for the blood test and happily learned I should be resistant.