Measles Outbreak - Dr Patrick Mularoni MD Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital

Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of Medicare and Medicaid Services, is urging people to make sure they and their young children have gotten the measles vaccine. That follows an outbreak of as many as seven hundred cases nationwide this year. We speak with Dr. Patrick Mularoni, a pediatric emergency physician at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, about vaccine hesitancy and additional precautions during this outbreak. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Goldenbird here with Beyond the News. Measles a concern again
after many years being sort of off the radar in
this country. We have now seven hundred measles cases nationwide
this year, some of those reported in Florida. We have
doctor Patrick mulroney, he is a pediatric emergency medical physician

(00:21):
at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in Saint Petersburg, to
update us on this and what parents and families need
to be doing. Doctor mulroney, thank you very much for
joining us on Beyond the.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
News, and thank you Gordon.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Well, just as we are saying this, we just got
a notification that the head of Medicare and Medicaid is
urging people to get vaccinated for measles, doctor Memitaz saying
that after seven hundred measles cases in the US nationwide,
this can be a particularly a dangerous illness, and I
assume that you agree and talk to us about the

(00:57):
situation about getting vaccinated making sure your kids are vaccinated
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Gordon. Unfortunately, in the United States right now, we're having
a lot of vaccine hesitancy, and US physicians are seeing
more and more families who are deciding not to vaccinate
their children. And one of the reasons why they're not
vaccinating their children is because they're worried about the vaccines.
But the other reason is because many of these conditions
that we're vaccinating for we just haven't seen. They haven't

(01:24):
really been around because vaccine vaccination works so well well. Unfortunately,
as less kids get vaccinated, these things will pop back up,
and measles is one of those viruses that we are
now seeing.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
And you point out not only is it an issue
of parents not having seen measles in a long time,
it's also true for doctors.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
That is absolutely correct. I'm a pediatric emergency posician. I've
been doing it for twenty years. I've seen sixty thousand
kids in the pediatric emergency room, and I have never
seen measles. I have never been in the emergency room
when measles has come in to see it, when one
of my colleagues is seeing it. It's a condition that
was very common, you know, in the fifties and sixties,
but we're not seeing it anymore. And I worry about

(02:07):
that for some individuals who providers who have never seen
it before and it doesn't show up on their differential
now to.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Recap some of the situations that we've seen in Florida
so far this year, and the details are subject to change.
We've had a student at Saint Petersburg Catholic High reported
positive for measles possible exposure at the University of Florida,
and twenty confirmed cases at ave Maria University down in

(02:35):
the Naples area, and at last report they've been telling
people who aren't vaccinated to stay away from the campus.
And kind of an overview here, it seems like a
lot of this what we've seen so far is concentrated
in teens and young adults. Is that the generation where
we start to see the drop off in vaccination rates?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, that is absolutely where we're seeing it, and unfortunately
seeing and younger children. And then one of the things
we have to think about with measles is we don't
vaccinate for measles until a child is twelve months of age,
so any child less than a year of age can
catch measles, and measles is one of the most contagious
viruses we know. Some reports say that if you're in
a room with somebody with measles and you're not vaccinated,

(03:17):
nine out of ten people in that room will contract measles.
So it is very contagious and it spreads very easily.
And one of the aspects about measles that's so unique
is that the incubation period is seven to fourteen days,
So you get exposed and you don't show symptoms for
another week or two weeks. And the initial symptoms look
like a cold, it's running nose, it's cloth, it's fever. Now,

(03:40):
there is one thing about it. You do get bright
red eyes in many cases, which which people your provider
might think, wow, this might be measles, But it takes
three or four more days after you've become sick to
get that telltale measles rash that covers the entire body.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Now, I'm thinking now where you may be talking about
also situations where there may be you're older and you
haven't been you haven't had kids in the house for
a while, and you may be carrying and not know
and you see the grandchildren, and particularly if they're very
young and not old enough to get their vaccines, you

(04:15):
might be spreading it and not know it.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Right, I think that there are people that are spreading
it and don't know it, but those are most often
unvaccinated individuals, even if you're a grandparent, even if you're
in your seventies. We believe that the measles vaccine confers
lifelong immunity. There's only very unique situations where you require
a booster. So you know, vaccination is the number one thing.
But if a person who has BEASLS is moving around

(04:41):
in society, maybe they have just mild symptoms, they're going
to be spreading it really quickly.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
All right, Recap what people need to know and what
people need to do getting through the situation, especially parents.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I think that if you're first and foremost, if you're
a parent, or if you're a grandparent of somebody of
a child that's less than a year of age, we
need to be really careful right now, especially knowing that
it's in the community. If you're somebody who is sick,
even if you've been vaccinated, you're probably going to want
to stay away from young children or those that have
not been vaccinated. It's unlikely that you have measles, but
you know it can spread. It can spread to them,

(05:17):
and it causes pretty serious disease. You know, measles is
not like just the common cold. Measles can cause encephalitis,
which is inflammation of the brain. It causes pneumonia, It
leads to a lot of hospitalizations, and it can even
lead to death. So it is a very serious virus.
And I think that the most important thing for parents
to know is that if you are concerned. Let's say
you have a child that's under twelve months of age,

(05:37):
it hasn't been vaccinated, or you've chosen not to vaccinate
your child, and you're going to seek medical care, please
call ahead. Please call ahead to the emergency room, or
call ahead to your doctor's office telling them that you're
concerned about measles, because waiting in a waiting room with
children under twelve months of age, you could easily spread this.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Doctor Patrick mulroney, MD, pediatric emergency physician at Johns Hopkins
All Children's Hospital in Saint Petersburg. Thanks for joining us
and thanks for the information.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Thank you