These are just questions, so don't shoot me for asking them.
Like the measles, HFMD (Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease) can be fatal, and cause encephalopathy.
Why have the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and WHO (World Health Organization) chosen to focus so much on the measles/MMR vaccine, when HFMD, having some of the same potentially fatal complications, is still around? There is no vaccine for HFMD. Why? It could still make a fatal comeback in the unvaccinated US.
It killed 55 children in Taipei, Taiwan from April to July in 1998. That is many more lives than the measles has claimed in the US in decades.
What about cholera? There is a vaccine, but it is not given to children in most developed countries.
According to this source cholera kills 28,800 - 130,000 people every year. If measles is deadly and must be vaccinated for in developed countries, why not cholera? What does the WHO ("World Health Organization") have to say about this?
Cholera is most deadly in Africa and Southeast Asia, and claims up to 130,000 lives a year. Low-balling the cholera stats from above for the sake of erring on the side of caution, we can see that 1 in 200 people that get cholera will die from it (granted this is much less likely in developed countries).
28,800 deaths in 5 million cases
28,000 / 5,000,000 = .005
5/1000
1/200
One might argue that sewage and sanitation systems have rendered it a non-issue in the US. The CDC agrees (see below), but people still travel and are at risk, and the disease is still highly contagious. Wouldn't it be better to prevent it by using a vaccine? Measles is often imported by travelers as well, as the CDC warns.
Although it seems more easily treatable than measles, it does seem somewhat serious if it can "kill within hours."
Like cholera, measles tends to be more serious in the places where hygiene, nutrition, and sanitation are poor. It also tends to affect children under 5, and adults over 20 years of age more seriously. Serious complications usually occur in individuals with weak immune systems or other health issues which complicate the illness.
The 1 out of 1,000 people that the CDC (somewhat dubiously) says will die of measles when infected, then, is almost always going to be a person who was already sick or whose immune system was compromised/malnourished. This must be true then for cholera and HFMD as well, no?
So, if measles, cholera, and HFMD share so many similarities, why aren't all three being vaccinated against? Why aren't all three being talked about?
Can't the other two (Cholera/HFMD) make a comeback in the US since herd immunity is not being vaccine-maintained?
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
