Desert Local News - Index

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14 california wire & political cartoons
Sen John McCain and the GOP elephant are sitting on a couch, apparently on a romantic date. McCain, with a
flower in hand, is trying to embrace the elephant, saying: ‘Come on baby, we’re dating now -- give me a kiss.’
The elephant is shrinking back, saying: ‘Sorry, but you still kind of creep me out.’ Editorial cartoon by Chris
Britt. Other keywords: 2008 election, GOP , John McCain, nomination
By Cheryl Clark
San Diego County’s first measles
outbreak in 17 years may have
expanded from four children last
week to 10 Monday. The six new
patients, including four infants,
may have contracted the viral disease
while in the office of the doctor
who treated the first sick child.
The six cases reported Monday
are awaiting test confirmation,
county health officials said.
As a precaution, more than
50 children at a charter school, a
swim school and a day care center
who had contact with the patients
must stay home because they are
at risk of being infected.
These quarantined children had
not been vaccinated because they
were younger than 1 - the minimum
vaccination age - or their
parents declined inoculation for
them, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the
county’s public health officer.
The six new patients all went
to the same doctor’s office on the
same day. County officials didn’t
identify the office. They said routine
cleaning for medical settings
would be enough to kill the measles
virus, which cannot live for
more than two hours after it is expelled
by a cough or sneeze.
The latest patients include a
10-month-old infant who attends
Baldwin Academy day care center
and the Murray Callan Swim
School, both in the Pacific Beach
neighborhood. The infant was hospitalized
Saturday and is expected
to be discharged today (Feb. 12).
About 16 Baldwin students must
stay home because they have not
been vaccinated or lack natural
immunity from a prior measles ill-
ness. Wooten said 13 of them are
younger than 12 months, and the
other three are of preschool age.
County health officials have
not determined how many children
at the swim school may have been
exposed to the measles virus.
They also didn’t say whether
the other five patients identified
Monday attend any schools or
programs.
The outbreak began last month
when a child contracted measles
during a family trip to Switzerland.
The child returned to San Diego
and infected two siblings.
Two of the initial three patients
go to the San Diego Cooperative
Charter School in Linda Vista.
One of them infected a classmate,
bringing the outbreak total to four
patients last week.
Officials for the San Diego
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is onstage with another
man. A crowd waves signs that say: ‘McCain’s got the nomination;
drop out now’; and ‘Go! It’s over.’ They chant: ‘Go, Huckabee, go!’
Huckabee says: ‘Hear that? They want me ...’ Editorial cartoon by
Gary Markstein.
San Diego measles cases
may have expanded
Unified School District said the
380-student charter school has a 90
percent measles vaccination rate,
the lowest in the district. Some of
the students’ parents believe vaccines
contain toxic ingredients.
Measles is a highly contagious
disease, especially in children,
who can become extremely sick
with pneumonia and brain swelling.
The illness can be fatal.
Measles complications can be
“devastatingly severe in infants,”
said Dr. Stuart Cohen, a pediatrician
and president-elect of the San
Diego County Medical Society.
“They’re hospitalized in isolation.”
There is no cure per se, except
rest and hydration.
Nationwide, measles has become
exceedingly rare in the past
15 years because vaccination has
become routine. At most elementary
schools in the county, inoculation
rates range from 98 percent to
99 percent.
“There’s a kind of herd immunity,”
Cohen said. “Now you’ve
got some parents who have decided
on their own that it’s dangerous,
and now we have an outbreak.”
Schools require vaccination
against measles, mumps and rubella.
But state law allows parents
to obtain exemptions based
on medical, religious or personal
reasons.
Monday, Wooten renewed a
call for parents to get their children
vaccinated. After the first
shot at 12 months, children should
be inoculated again between age 4
and 6.
Desert Local News source
Copley News Service