In this segment, host Phil Tower welcomes Dr. Andrew Jameson, the Specialty Medical Director at Trinity Health Medical Group in West Michigan and Section Chief of Infectious Diseases at Trinity Health Grand Rapids hospital.
Michigan currently has 15 confirmed measles cases, with 7 cases considered part of an ongoing outbreak, according to the State of Michigan. This outbreak is the first in Michigan since 2019.
Without any doubt, measles presents a significant public health concern when identified in any community.
Dr. Jameson discussed how measles is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that is spread by direct person-to-person contact and that it can live for up to 2 hours in the air after an infected person has left the area.
Nearly 90% of unvaccinated individuals who are exposed to measles will become infected.
Online: Trinity Health Medical Group, Infectious Disease - Grand Rapids Campus
Phil
Michigan currently has 15 confirmed measles cases, with 7 cases considered part of an ongoing outbreak, according to the State of Michigan. This outbreak is the first in Michigan since 2019.
Without any doubt, measles presents a significant public health concern when identified in any community.
Dr. Jameson discussed how measles is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that is spread by direct person-to-person contact and that it can live for up to 2 hours in the air after an infected person has left the area.
Nearly 90% of unvaccinated individuals who are exposed to measles will become infected.
Online: Trinity Health Medical Group, Infectious Disease - Grand Rapids Campus
Phil
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
And in this segment, we tackle a disease that has
reared its ugly head once again, a disease that was
for decades under control with vaccinations. But we have the
highest number of cases in nearly twenty five years across
the country and we're talking about measles. Measles cases reported
(00:37):
in Michigan, reported across the United States and across the globe,
and it's something you should be aware of because it
is a highly communicable disease. Doctor Andrew Jamison joins us
in this segment. He is the Specialty Medical Director at
Trinity Health Medical Group in West Michigan, Section chief of
Infectious Diseases at Trinity Health Here and Go and Rapids,
(01:01):
and also Associate Professor of Medicine and Clerkship Director of
Internal Medicine at MSU's College of Human Medicine. Doctor Andrew
Jamison with us on our liveline in this segment. Thank
you for joining us. Doctor Jamison.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Absolutely, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, this is a big deal. It is a serious disease.
It's highly contagious, and as we are recording this interview,
there are about eleven hundred and ninety seven confirmed cases
of measles across the country, and here in Michigan we
have several cases of measles. We have measles, the highest
(01:43):
number of cases in Montcalm County, but cases in several counties.
Let's start with the basics with this disease. It is
an issue again because there are a fair number of
non vaccinated people who are catching this disease. Do we
(02:03):
know what caused this outbreak? Especially in twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty five, the last couple of years, numbers have
really spiked. What caused the outbreak? Doctor Jamison?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, And it really is an issue of overall immunity
in a community. So inside a small group of people
or a big group of people in a geographic area
that have an immunity that drops below ninety five percent.
So when you start getting the overall the overall immunity
(02:36):
in that area of less than ninety five percent, then
you really start to get susceptible because you can get
transmissions in between those non immune individuals. So this is
just a simple case of our total immunity is dropping
a little bit and has been dropping over the past
few years.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So in Michigan we have as we record this conversation,
we have twelve total cases in montcom County. We mentioned
highest number of cases there, but we have cases all
throughout the state. And this is a disease that is
easily transferred. As I'm looking at some of the characteristics
(03:18):
of this disease, it can live for a couple of
hours after someone an exposed person or person with measles
has been in a room, and sporadic outbreaks have been
happening in this country for some time. But as we
said earlier that the spike was really noticeable in the
last couple of years. How is this transferred from person
(03:41):
to person? Let's start with that, because this can be
a serious case when you're out and about, even in
the summertime outside, if somebody's near you who's coughing and sneezing,
this could be an issue.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a very impressive virus in terms of its
replication and ability to to transmit from person to person.
You're exactly right that this is a virus that is airborne,
which means when someone coughs or sneezes, little droplets go out.
But they're not droplets that settle quickly or drop very quickly.
(04:15):
These are small particles that can stay in the air
for hours. And one thing that people might notice when
they're looking at some of the public health releases or
some of the exposure places. You know, for example, when
the State of Michigan puts out a place where someone
might have been when they were positive and infectious, they
(04:35):
will give a window of time of you know, two
to six hours basically, And what that means is that
if you were in a room where someone moves with
measles was in two hours ago, there is still measles
in the air and you can pick that up. And
that's what makes it so impressive. So a single case
(04:55):
of measles can spread to up to eighteen secondary cases
in susceptible individuals. It is incredibly versatile in terms of
its ability to go from person to person and can
spread incredibly fast.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, symptoms of measles usually begin and this is what's
concerning seven to fourteen days after exposure. They can appear
up to twenty one days after exposure.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, and yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You could be walking around infecting other people not even
knowing you have the disease.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, you're you're right on there. And one of the
trouble troublesome things is that fever is typically the first
symptom you get. But as we all know, fever and
a little bit of sore throats and a little bit
of like running nose or like a little bit of
redness in your eyes incredibly common for a regular virus.
(05:51):
So for the first two to three days, you just
think you're coming down with something and you're not that worried.
It really is not until that rat kicks in that
all of a sudden people are like, hey, maybe something's
not right here. But that rash happens typically, you know,
two to three days after their symptoms start, So that
gives a really really nice lead up that allows people
(06:14):
to spread this even before they know it's an actual problem.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Right, And that rash it's indicated inside the inner cheeks, gums,
and roof of the mouth. Those are called coplex spots.
They appear two to three days after those symptoms you
just described began. Then there's also and I did not
know this for people with measles, a rash that has
read raised, blotchy and starts in the face, spreads to
(06:40):
the upper body, trunk, arms, and legs three to five
days after symptoms begin. So let's say you've got some
telltale signs for this. This is an important question, doctor Jamison.
If you think you might be presenting with measles, you
can't just walk into an emergentes and see room. I mean,
(07:01):
what do you do? What do you recommend for someone
who may suspect they've been exposed or they may have
the disease.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, this is This is actually one of the most
important things because this is where we look out for
each other. I'm a big proponent of saying that a
lot of these infectious disease and communicable diseases that we
deal with in the United States, we just have to
look out for one each other and look out for
our neighbors. So as soon as someone maybe doesn't know
(07:30):
what their immune status is or wasn't vaccinated for measles
when they were younger, if you start getting a fever,
a sore throat, but then you get a rash. There
are very few infectious diseases out there that give you
a rash and fever, and so when you see that
rash that you just need to have a plan, and
(07:51):
you need to have a plan to reach out to
you to your healthcare team, whether you're going to the er,
the urgent care, or the primary care, you actually want
to let them know you're coming. So, for instance, in Trinity,
we have a plan in place so that as soon
as someone hits the door or calls us, we have
a way to keep them safe, to get them seen,
(08:12):
to give them the care they need, but also protect
everybody in the community that also might use that office
and protect all of the caregivers that might be seeing them.
So you, for example, if you called ahead and told
us you had a fever and a rash and you
didn't know if you were vaccinated as a kid, we
would say, all right, let us know where you're here.
You'll stay in your car, we will come get you.
(08:34):
We will escort you right back to a room. We'll
have caregivers and the team and the physician team that
will see you, get you taken care of you, test
you for things that you might have but we will
keep you out of the waiting room for a long
period of time, so we'll do what we can to
protect those around you.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, that's a good point. Doctor Andrew Jamison with us.
He's Specialty Medical director at Trinity Health Medical Group in
West Michigan and Sex and Chief of Infection Diseases at
Trinity Health Grand Rapids. As we talk about measle outbreaks
here in Michigan and across the country. Now, if you
were traveling, you were curious. The worst state currently in
(09:12):
the country is Texas seven hundred seventy five cases of measles,
fifty cases reported just in the last four weeks. New
Mexico second on the list with eighty one cases, ten
in the last four weeks. Kansas is third with seventy one,
North Dakota fourth with thirty four, and Ohio tied at
(09:34):
fourth with thirty four total cases of measles. And I
think the concerning thing is that you can be a
group of people and someone might just have a cough
because of an allergy, hey fever, sneeze. You really don't
know what do you recommend to protect yourself against possible exposure.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
So the big thing is if you don't know if
you were vaccinated, try to find your vaccine record. If
you know you have not been vaccinated, it's not too late.
One dose of the vaccine is highly efficacious, over ninety percent.
So the number one way to protect yourself is get vaccinated.
That can be done at the health department, if that
(10:20):
can be done at any primary care office. We have
ability to vaccinate you regardless of insurance status or ability
to pay, So it's that is the best way to
do it. Outside of that, I would actually say that
I don't think people need to walk around being worried
about measls. Like I would not be in a scenario
(10:40):
where I was I was with a group of people
and we were outside and someone had a symptom of
a cold, where all of a sudden, my first thing
would go to my mind is measles. We're not there yet.
The big problem is I would really or the next
step there is though I would really love not to
get to that point, and so that's where vaccine. Vaccines
(11:01):
are just so important. There. What we've seen in the
United States is that as as there's been more people
that are opting out of vaccinations, they've been relying on
those that do vaccinate to kind of protect them. So
we haven't seen this as much, but we have had
our community weighing significantly in Michigan, and we are well
(11:23):
below that threshold where you can start getting sustained outbreaks,
and that's what we're kind of staying there. The only
other thing I would say about location for you to
be aware of is there's actually a very very large
outbreak in Ontario, Canada, and it's and some of the
cases that we've had in Michigan are tracked back to
(11:45):
about that outbreak in Ontario, and so that's actually quite
a bit closer to us than than Texas's, and it's
it's significant enough that we're actually partnering at the Michigan
in Health department level and the Ontario Public Health Ontario,
(12:06):
and we're actually having a speaker come to our statewide
Infectious Disease Society kind of talk about the experience they've
had there. I was trying to find the exact numbers,
but it's measured in the thousands of cases over in
Ontario right now.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
If a person is let's given an average example to
someone here in West Michigan, they're fifty eight years old,
they were vaccinated as a kid, they got all the
series of vaccines as you did typically back then, do
they need to get revaccinated if that vaccine's over fifty
years old, you.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Know most I would say the vast majority of people
will still have protection. So if you know you've got
two doses of a vaccine, you're in pretty good shape,
and you're not traveling internationally, you're not in any area
where they've had outbreaks. I don't really think you have
to do a whole lot there. If you are really
interested or you're curious, what I've been doing with my
(13:03):
patients is I just check them for the antibodies. We
have good tests. We can get an antibody test back
in a day, So when someone's coming in for the
routine blood work, they're like, hey, can you just make
sure I'm immune? I'm good, and we'll get we'll get
antibodies tested, and if they're very low or they don't
have that immune that immunity, we give them a booster
(13:24):
and then they're like, okay, great, I don't even have
to worry about it that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
That's fantastic. I had no idea you could do that,
So you can actually in your routine blood work. Somebody's listening.
They know they have a physical coming up in mid July.
Say to your doctor, I'd like to have you test
for measles anybodies.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Exactly, And it's super easy and gives you a ton
of reassurance. And I think I think one thing that
is important to say is that you know the vaccine
is highly efficacious, but it's not perfect. And so for example,
like in some of the cases that we've had uh
uh in Texas and New Mexico, there's been one or
two individuals that had two doses of the vaccine that
(14:03):
did get that did get measles. The good news is
if you have it vaccinated and you get it, the
chance of getting really sick, the chance of getting hospitalized,
the chance of getting some of the really scary like
like cequella, or like the results from the disease, like
some of the the brain inflammation disease state don't happen
(14:24):
as often. The vaccine is still very very helpful even
if you get unlucky.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And real quickly. If someone does have measles, you've got
a confirmed case, is it easy to treat once they
they're in your care and you have it diagnosed is
it easy to dial in the treatment and get them
healthy again.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah. You know, most of what happens once you have
confirmed measles is trying to prevent measles complications. So for example,
if you get measles, you're much more susceptible to bacterial
pneumonias or susceptible to ear infections or up restaurre infections.
So around one in twenty people that get measles will
(15:04):
develop a really severe lung infection, and that particularly is
the case in kids. They tend to have more complications.
So what we do as positions is we spend more
time trying to treat the complications because there is no
actual anti viral therapy for measles, so we don't have
anything that we can treat the measles with our job,
(15:24):
and what we try to do is treat all the
complications from measles, so and the hospitalizations come from that.
So we keep people hydrated, we keep their fever down,
we help try to prevent seizures. Some of these things
are the complications, you know, you know, one to three,
one to three out of a thousand people that do
get measles end up getting this really severe type of encephalitis,
(15:49):
which can result in permanent brain damage, and that is
some of the devastating causes. And when we look back
in history, I mean as recent as thousands in the world,
we had four million people, most of them kids, who
died for measles every year, four millions. And that was
in the that was just twenty five years ago. Now
(16:11):
that has dropped dramatically. But I don't want to be
back in a scenario in our country when we have
kids who don't need to that end up dying for measles,
and unfortunately that's happened this year.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
You're absolutely right. He is doctor Andrew Jamison, Specialty Medical
Director at Trinity Health Medical Group here in West Michigan,
also Chief of Infection Diseases at Trinity Health Grand Rapids.
I could do another twenty minutes with you who doctor Jamison.
This has been highly informative, very valuable information to share
with our audience. I thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That's been great.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
You've been listening to iHeart Radio's West Michigan Weekend. West
Michigan Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeart Radio.
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
And in this segment, we tackle a disease that has
reared its ugly head once again, a disease that was
for decades under control with vaccinations. But we have the
highest number of cases in nearly twenty five years across
the country and we're talking about measles. Measles cases reported
(00:37):
in Michigan, reported across the United States and across the globe,
and it's something you should be aware of because it
is a highly communicable disease. Doctor Andrew Jamison joins us
in this segment. He is the Specialty Medical Director at
Trinity Health Medical Group in West Michigan, Section chief of
Infectious Diseases at Trinity Health Here and Go and Rapids,
(01:01):
and also Associate Professor of Medicine and Clerkship Director of
Internal Medicine at MSU's College of Human Medicine. Doctor Andrew
Jamison with us on our liveline in this segment. Thank
you for joining us. Doctor Jamison.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Absolutely, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, this is a big deal. It is a serious disease.
It's highly contagious, and as we are recording this interview,
there are about eleven hundred and ninety seven confirmed cases
of measles across the country, and here in Michigan we
have several cases of measles. We have measles, the highest
(01:43):
number of cases in Montcalm County, but cases in several counties.
Let's start with the basics with this disease. It is
an issue again because there are a fair number of
non vaccinated people who are catching this disease. Do we
(02:03):
know what caused this outbreak? Especially in twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty five, the last couple of years, numbers have
really spiked. What caused the outbreak? Doctor Jamison?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, And it really is an issue of overall immunity
in a community. So inside a small group of people
or a big group of people in a geographic area
that have an immunity that drops below ninety five percent.
So when you start getting the overall the overall immunity
(02:36):
in that area of less than ninety five percent, then
you really start to get susceptible because you can get
transmissions in between those non immune individuals. So this is
just a simple case of our total immunity is dropping
a little bit and has been dropping over the past
few years.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So in Michigan we have as we record this conversation,
we have twelve total cases in montcom County. We mentioned
highest number of cases there, but we have cases all
throughout the state. And this is a disease that is
easily transferred. As I'm looking at some of the characteristics
(03:18):
of this disease, it can live for a couple of
hours after someone an exposed person or person with measles
has been in a room, and sporadic outbreaks have been
happening in this country for some time. But as we
said earlier that the spike was really noticeable in the
last couple of years. How is this transferred from person
(03:41):
to person? Let's start with that, because this can be
a serious case when you're out and about, even in
the summertime outside, if somebody's near you who's coughing and sneezing,
this could be an issue.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a very impressive virus in terms of its
replication and ability to to transmit from person to person.
You're exactly right that this is a virus that is airborne,
which means when someone coughs or sneezes, little droplets go out.
But they're not droplets that settle quickly or drop very quickly.
(04:15):
These are small particles that can stay in the air
for hours. And one thing that people might notice when
they're looking at some of the public health releases or
some of the exposure places. You know, for example, when
the State of Michigan puts out a place where someone
might have been when they were positive and infectious, they
(04:35):
will give a window of time of you know, two
to six hours basically, And what that means is that
if you were in a room where someone moves with
measles was in two hours ago, there is still measles
in the air and you can pick that up. And
that's what makes it so impressive. So a single case
(04:55):
of measles can spread to up to eighteen secondary cases
in susceptible individuals. It is incredibly versatile in terms of
its ability to go from person to person and can
spread incredibly fast.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, symptoms of measles usually begin and this is what's
concerning seven to fourteen days after exposure. They can appear
up to twenty one days after exposure.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, and yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
You could be walking around infecting other people not even
knowing you have the disease.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, you're you're right on there. And one of the
trouble troublesome things is that fever is typically the first
symptom you get. But as we all know, fever and
a little bit of sore throats and a little bit
of like running nose or like a little bit of
redness in your eyes incredibly common for a regular virus.
(05:51):
So for the first two to three days, you just
think you're coming down with something and you're not that worried.
It really is not until that rat kicks in that
all of a sudden people are like, hey, maybe something's
not right here. But that rash happens typically, you know,
two to three days after their symptoms start, So that
gives a really really nice lead up that allows people
(06:14):
to spread this even before they know it's an actual problem.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Right, And that rash it's indicated inside the inner cheeks, gums,
and roof of the mouth. Those are called coplex spots.
They appear two to three days after those symptoms you
just described began. Then there's also and I did not
know this for people with measles, a rash that has
read raised, blotchy and starts in the face, spreads to
(06:40):
the upper body, trunk, arms, and legs three to five
days after symptoms begin. So let's say you've got some
telltale signs for this. This is an important question, doctor Jamison.
If you think you might be presenting with measles, you
can't just walk into an emergentes and see room. I mean,
(07:01):
what do you do? What do you recommend for someone
who may suspect they've been exposed or they may have
the disease.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, this is This is actually one of the most
important things because this is where we look out for
each other. I'm a big proponent of saying that a
lot of these infectious disease and communicable diseases that we
deal with in the United States, we just have to
look out for one each other and look out for
our neighbors. So as soon as someone maybe doesn't know
(07:30):
what their immune status is or wasn't vaccinated for measles
when they were younger, if you start getting a fever,
a sore throat, but then you get a rash. There
are very few infectious diseases out there that give you
a rash and fever, and so when you see that
rash that you just need to have a plan, and
(07:51):
you need to have a plan to reach out to
you to your healthcare team, whether you're going to the er,
the urgent care, or the primary care, you actually want
to let them know you're coming. So, for instance, in Trinity,
we have a plan in place so that as soon
as someone hits the door or calls us, we have
a way to keep them safe, to get them seen,
(08:12):
to give them the care they need, but also protect
everybody in the community that also might use that office
and protect all of the caregivers that might be seeing them.
So you, for example, if you called ahead and told
us you had a fever and a rash and you
didn't know if you were vaccinated as a kid, we
would say, all right, let us know where you're here.
You'll stay in your car, we will come get you.
(08:34):
We will escort you right back to a room. We'll
have caregivers and the team and the physician team that
will see you, get you taken care of you, test
you for things that you might have but we will
keep you out of the waiting room for a long
period of time, so we'll do what we can to
protect those around you.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, that's a good point. Doctor Andrew Jamison with us.
He's Specialty Medical director at Trinity Health Medical Group in
West Michigan and Sex and Chief of Infection Diseases at
Trinity Health Grand Rapids. As we talk about measle outbreaks
here in Michigan and across the country. Now, if you
were traveling, you were curious. The worst state currently in
(09:12):
the country is Texas seven hundred seventy five cases of measles,
fifty cases reported just in the last four weeks. New
Mexico second on the list with eighty one cases, ten
in the last four weeks. Kansas is third with seventy one,
North Dakota fourth with thirty four, and Ohio tied at
(09:34):
fourth with thirty four total cases of measles. And I
think the concerning thing is that you can be a
group of people and someone might just have a cough
because of an allergy, hey fever, sneeze. You really don't
know what do you recommend to protect yourself against possible exposure.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
So the big thing is if you don't know if
you were vaccinated, try to find your vaccine record. If
you know you have not been vaccinated, it's not too late.
One dose of the vaccine is highly efficacious, over ninety percent.
So the number one way to protect yourself is get vaccinated.
That can be done at the health department, if that
(10:20):
can be done at any primary care office. We have
ability to vaccinate you regardless of insurance status or ability
to pay, So it's that is the best way to
do it. Outside of that, I would actually say that
I don't think people need to walk around being worried
about measls. Like I would not be in a scenario
(10:40):
where I was I was with a group of people
and we were outside and someone had a symptom of
a cold, where all of a sudden, my first thing
would go to my mind is measles. We're not there yet.
The big problem is I would really or the next
step there is though I would really love not to
get to that point, and so that's where vaccine. Vaccines
(11:01):
are just so important. There. What we've seen in the
United States is that as as there's been more people
that are opting out of vaccinations, they've been relying on
those that do vaccinate to kind of protect them. So
we haven't seen this as much, but we have had
our community weighing significantly in Michigan, and we are well
(11:23):
below that threshold where you can start getting sustained outbreaks,
and that's what we're kind of staying there. The only
other thing I would say about location for you to
be aware of is there's actually a very very large
outbreak in Ontario, Canada, and it's and some of the
cases that we've had in Michigan are tracked back to
(11:45):
about that outbreak in Ontario, and so that's actually quite
a bit closer to us than than Texas's, and it's
it's significant enough that we're actually partnering at the Michigan
in Health department level and the Ontario Public Health Ontario,
(12:06):
and we're actually having a speaker come to our statewide
Infectious Disease Society kind of talk about the experience they've
had there. I was trying to find the exact numbers,
but it's measured in the thousands of cases over in
Ontario right now.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
If a person is let's given an average example to
someone here in West Michigan, they're fifty eight years old,
they were vaccinated as a kid, they got all the
series of vaccines as you did typically back then, do
they need to get revaccinated if that vaccine's over fifty
years old, you.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Know most I would say the vast majority of people
will still have protection. So if you know you've got
two doses of a vaccine, you're in pretty good shape,
and you're not traveling internationally, you're not in any area
where they've had outbreaks. I don't really think you have
to do a whole lot there. If you are really
interested or you're curious, what I've been doing with my
(13:03):
patients is I just check them for the antibodies. We
have good tests. We can get an antibody test back
in a day, So when someone's coming in for the
routine blood work, they're like, hey, can you just make
sure I'm immune? I'm good, and we'll get we'll get
antibodies tested, and if they're very low or they don't
have that immune that immunity, we give them a booster
(13:24):
and then they're like, okay, great, I don't even have
to worry about it that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
That's fantastic. I had no idea you could do that,
So you can actually in your routine blood work. Somebody's listening.
They know they have a physical coming up in mid July.
Say to your doctor, I'd like to have you test
for measles anybodies.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Exactly, And it's super easy and gives you a ton
of reassurance. And I think I think one thing that
is important to say is that you know the vaccine
is highly efficacious, but it's not perfect. And so for example,
like in some of the cases that we've had uh
uh in Texas and New Mexico, there's been one or
two individuals that had two doses of the vaccine that
(14:03):
did get that did get measles. The good news is
if you have it vaccinated and you get it, the
chance of getting really sick, the chance of getting hospitalized,
the chance of getting some of the really scary like
like cequella, or like the results from the disease, like
some of the the brain inflammation disease state don't happen
(14:24):
as often. The vaccine is still very very helpful even
if you get unlucky.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And real quickly. If someone does have measles, you've got
a confirmed case, is it easy to treat once they
they're in your care and you have it diagnosed is
it easy to dial in the treatment and get them
healthy again.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah. You know, most of what happens once you have
confirmed measles is trying to prevent measles complications. So for example,
if you get measles, you're much more susceptible to bacterial
pneumonias or susceptible to ear infections or up restaurre infections.
So around one in twenty people that get measles will
(15:04):
develop a really severe lung infection, and that particularly is
the case in kids. They tend to have more complications.
So what we do as positions is we spend more
time trying to treat the complications because there is no
actual anti viral therapy for measles, so we don't have
anything that we can treat the measles with our job,
(15:24):
and what we try to do is treat all the
complications from measles, so and the hospitalizations come from that.
So we keep people hydrated, we keep their fever down,
we help try to prevent seizures. Some of these things
are the complications, you know, you know, one to three,
one to three out of a thousand people that do
get measles end up getting this really severe type of encephalitis,
(15:49):
which can result in permanent brain damage, and that is
some of the devastating causes. And when we look back
in history, I mean as recent as thousands in the world,
we had four million people, most of them kids, who
died for measles every year, four millions. And that was
in the that was just twenty five years ago. Now
(16:11):
that has dropped dramatically. But I don't want to be
back in a scenario in our country when we have
kids who don't need to that end up dying for measles,
and unfortunately that's happened this year.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
You're absolutely right. He is doctor Andrew Jamison, Specialty Medical
Director at Trinity Health Medical Group here in West Michigan,
also Chief of Infection Diseases at Trinity Health Grand Rapids.
I could do another twenty minutes with you who doctor Jamison.
This has been highly informative, very valuable information to share
with our audience. I thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That's been great.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
You've been listening to iHeart Radio's West Michigan Weekend. West
Michigan Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeart Radio.
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