Follow up on Epidemic Watch Continued
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
Ebola is not the only viral threat that is quietly on the march. In the Saturday, October 26th Los Angeles Times, ON THE GROUND IN KAMPALA UGANDA, Krista Mahr reports the progression of a measles epidemic despite the near elimination of the disease by immunization in 2016. It would appear that it is not only the spoiled and misinformed housewives and husbands of San Francisco's Silicon Valley that are eschewing vaccination. The reasoning is the same...fear of somehow weakening the children. The British Medical Journal which published a report of paralysis following the immunization has long ago retracted the false report.
Mahr indicates that as of September, 44% of the worldwide cases occurred in Africa. A massive outbreak in the island of Madagascar off the coast of Mozambique killing over 1000 and affecting 150,000. She indicates that even in Uganda, the disease is on the rise due to ignoring immunization and shortage of vaccine once the disease is underway. Of course, Uganda is under threat by Ebola as well and probably by resurgent tuberculosis too. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, overtly struggling with Ebola and internecine war, is seeing a rise in measles; once more anti-vaccination and vaccine shortage are huge factors.
With masses of people on the move worldwide due to war, narcoterrorism, terrorism, tourism, etc., the opportunity for spread of infectious disease seems to be increasing geometrically. It is paradoxical that the lifestyle proclivities of privilege should interact with the desperation of the deprived to promote piracy (pirates of Mogadishu), drug trafficking, provide a cover for human trafficking, and in the interaction of all of these weave a fabric in the folds of which terrible infectious diseases are proliferating.
The seams that separate us as citizens of the U.S. and which prevent us from fully benefiting from constitutional protections as far as health education and welfare are concerned are Lilliputian when compared with the rifts that prevent us from understanding that we are world citizens and that we, as a nation, have a leadership responsibility to promote a sane and healthy world while responsibly protecting our national boundaries.
