Vaccines & Viruses: Measles outbreak kills over 300 in Congo

Measles mortality. An outbreak of measles is wreaking havoc in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 315 people have died in Katanga, a copper and cobalt mining province about the size of Spain, and more than 20,000 people have caught the disease. According to Reuters, United Nations officials said last week many deaths likely have gone unreported, and the outbreak is “only worsening and gaining ground.”

That’s in spite of an ongoing Doctors Without Borders campaign that has vaccinated 287,000 Congolese children against measles, more than half of them in Katanga province. Poor roads have hampered the effort, and some areas are accessible only by motorbike or boat. It doesn’t help that about two-thirds of the country’s population live in poverty: According to the medical group, malnutrition and exposure to diseases like malaria and tuberculosis have increased the mortality rate among measles-infected children.

Congo’s outbreak is a stark reminder of life before the widespread vaccine coverage that wealthier nations enjoy. Measles used to infect millions and kill up to 500 people each year in the United States, but with vaccination now routine, a measles outbreak that began in Disneyland last December spread to just 117 people. August is National Immunization Awareness Month, and in honor of the occasion, the American Academy of Pediatrics is featuring articles written by senior doctors who remember treating children sickened by vaccine-preventable diseases. Kathleen Braico remembers treating measles patients during an outbreak among unvaccinated Amish:

“It was one of the hardest nights I had as a pediatrician, sitting next to a bed of a 1-year-old Amish child. I worked for hours administering a medication to reduce swelling of the brain, but after a while, the child stopped responding to the treatments and passed away.”

Beating back polio. The happier news from Africa is that as of Aug. 11 the continent has gone one year without a reported case of polio, an important step toward eradication. Africa needs to go three years without a case to be declared polio-free.

Chinese cell line. As WORLD has previously noted, some vaccines were developed using human cell lines taken from aborted babies—part of a longstanding fetal tissue trade brought into the limelight by the recent undercover videos taken at Planned Parenthood facilities. A reader sends us a link to this 2015 Chinese study, which shows researchers are still using fetal tissue from abortions to develop cell lines intended for vaccine development. In this case, the researchers derived a cell line “from a fetal lung tissue … obtained from a 3-month-old female fetus aborted because of the presence of a uterine scar from a previous caesarean birth by a 27-year-old healthy woman.” But since the unborn baby came from a hospital in Yunnan, it’s possible the abortion had more to do with China’s one-child policy than with scar tissue. (Look for more WORLD coverage of vaccines and fetal tissue, including ethical perspectives, in coming weeks.)

Delayed action. Carl Zimmer at The New York Times reports scientists successfully tested an Ebola vaccine in monkeys a decade ago, but the vaccine wasn’t pushed forward for human trials and approval until last year’s outbreak in Africa.

Required in class: HPV prevention. The Rhode Island Department of Health has mandated all girls entering seventh grade this fall be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, the sexually transmitted infection that can cause cancer. Parents can apply for a medical or religious exemption. The only two other jurisdictions mandating controversial HPV vaccines for schoolchildren are Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Tick-proof? When ticks bite this disease ecologist from Millbrook, N.Y., his body produces an immune response so strong the ticks die—a clue, he believes, that an “anti-tick vaccine” is possible.

Heads up, western New York. This week, health officials are airdropping chewable animal treats that contain rabies vaccines, intended for raccoons and other wildlife.