Measles Death Points to Need for Herd Immunity Vaccinated, but vulnerable due to impaired immune system

The measles virus is thought to be the most transmissible virus we know," William Schaffner, MD, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., told MedPage Today. For every one person who has it, it can spread to an average of up to 18 others. The virus is airborne and can linger in a room for up to 2 hours after an contagious person has left and infect someone new, Schaffner said. "That's an extraordinarily infectious virus, much more infectious than the flu," he said. Schaffner said people with impaired immune systems due to medications, such as steroids or chemotherapy, or disease, such as leukemia, are most likely to benefit from herd immunity. "These patients -- the ones who are immunocompromised -- essentially depend on others around them to receive vaccines to maintain what is referred to as herd immunity," said Robert Glatter, MD, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, adding that herd immunity also protects babies under a year old, who are too young to be vaccinated. "The bottom line is that we have a responsibility for the http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDisease/52473?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-07-08&eun=g721819d0r