US Customs has no plan to vaccinate migrant detainees against flu
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it will not vaccinate migrants, despite concerns some have raised about infectious disease spread, particularly the deaths of three children who died after falling ill with flu while in US custody, according to media reports.
In response to queries, the CBP issued a statement saying it nor its medical contractor administers vaccines because of the short-term nature of CBP holding, CNN reported yesterday. According to the report, migrants are supposed to be held by CBP for 72 hours or less, but are often held longer.
Children without parents held by CBP are handled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which does distribute flu vaccine, Evelyn Stauffer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement told CNN.
In responding to the CBP stance, public health experts contacted by CNN said short-term detention should not be an obstacle to vaccinating migrants.
In a related development, on Aug 5 two lawmakers wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and HHS raising concerns about infectious disease spread, following their Jul 15 visit to a DHS detention facility, according to the CNN report. The members of Congress who wrote the letter are Reps Rosa DeLauro and Lucille Roybal-Allard, both California Democrats.
Aug 20 CNN story
CDC records 3,700 more hepatitis A cases in widespread outbreaks
Earlier this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated information regarding a 3-year hepatitis A outbreak, and said 24,280 cases, including 236 deaths have been recorded in 30 states.
This case total represents an increase of 3,768 cases since late June, when the CDC recorded 20,512 cases of hepatitis A virus (HAV). Sixty percent of all cases have required hospitalization, the CDC said.
A total of 28 states still have ongoing, active outbreaks, with Kentucky, Ohio, Florida, and West Virginia reporting the most cases since August 2016. Drug users, the homeless, men who have sex with men, people currently or recently incarcerated, and those with chronic liver disease are the most heavily affected in these outbreaks, the CDC said.
"One dose of single-antigen hepatitis A vaccine has been shown to control outbreaks of hepatitis A and provides up to 95% seroprotection in healthy individuals for up to 11 years," the CDC said. "Postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) is recommended for unvaccinated people who have been exposed to hepatitis A virus (HAV) in the last 2 weeks; those with evidence of previous vaccination do not require PEP."
Aug 19 CDC update
Jun 24 CIDRAP News Scan "CDC: 24 hepatitis A outbreaks in US since 2016 total 20,500 cases"
Nigeria reaches wild poliovirus eradication benchmark
The World Health Organization (WHO) today said Nigeria has reached a major milestone in its efforts to eradicate wild poliovirus by reaching 3 years with no new cases.
In a WHO statement, Faisal Shuaib, MD, DrPH, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said Nigeria's accomplishment is a step toward certifying the whole African region as free of wild poliovirus. And he added that the achievement is very fragile, "one which we must delicately manage with cautious euphoria."
He commended novel strategies used in the fight against the disease and the strong domestic and global financing of the efforts. Remaining challenges are low immunization rates in some areas that have led to outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio and the difficulty that immunization campaigns have in reaching children in some inaccessible areas.
Following Nigeria's recent achievement, the African Regional Commission for Certification of Polio Eradication will start a rigorous effort to confirm that each African region country is free of wild poliovirus, and Nigeria will submit its final data for evaluation in March 2020, if there are no new cases. The whole region could be certified as wild polio–free as soon as the middle of 2020, leaving only one region of the world as endemic: the Eastern Mediterranean.
Aug 21 WHO Africa regional office statement
