Vaccines and Viruses: South Korean MERS outbreak kills 33

MERS controls. South Korea reported its 33rd death this week in a contagious outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that began in May. The outbreak sickened 182 people but seems to be slowing. Last week the country passed new legislation authorizing jail time for Koreans who don’t obey quarantine orders or who lie about their exposure history. The law also gives health officials more power to enforce quarantines and requires them to publish the names of hospitals that contain infected patients. But since the law won’t take effect for another six months, it will have only a symbolic impact on the current outbreak. With the latest death, the fatality rate is 18 percent for South Korea’s outbreak—the largest MERS epidemic outside the Middle East so far. German researchers say they’ve successfully tested a MERS vaccine in mice, and they hope to begin human trials soon.

Gov. Brown’s call. On Monday, the California Senate approved final changes to the mandatory vaccination bill that’s been the subject of so many of these columns. Now the bill is in the hands of Gov. Jerry Brown, who hasn’t said publicly whether he supports it. Under the law, California children attending school or daycare must get scheduled vaccines unless they have a legitimate medical reason to forgo them. Parents who object will have to homeschool or enroll their children in independent study programs.

Ebola reemergence. Liberian health officials reported Tuesday the body of a deceased 17-year-old male has tested positive for Ebola. The country had gone about three months without a new Ebola case.

Autism researcher dead. Jeff Bradstreet, a controversial autism researcher and prominent vaccine critic, was found dead in a North Carolina river with a gunshot wound to the chest. Authorities describe it as an apparent suicide. Bradstreet’s death came after Food and Drug Administration officials raided his Buford, Ga., autism treatment clinic, the Bradstreet Wellness Center.

Gardasil success? A new study found that reports of pre-cancerous cervical lesions (cellular abnormalities that can lead to cervical cancer) in young women have decreased dramatically since the introduction of the Gardasil HPV vaccine nearly a decade ago. Among California women ages 18 to 20, for example, doctor-diagnosed “high grade” cervical lesions fell from 94 out of every 100,000 women to 5 out of every 100,000 women between 2008 and 2012. But researchers say the decline could be partly due to new health policies that have decreased cervical screening for younger women.

Plague death. A 16-year-old boy from Colorado died of bubonic plague earlier this month, state health officials said. The teen apparently caught the rare disease from fleas on his family’s rural property. There are an average of seven cases of plague reported in the United States each year.