Infectious Diseases Are on The Rise in the US: Why and What Can Reverse That Trend?
Topic # 89
Image from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7312a4.htm
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Defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, “Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities.1” Rising rates of infectious diseases require attention from not only public health officials, but everyone.
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Many believed scarlet fever was close to being eradicated in the mid twentieth century, yet not only has it lingered but recently cases have skyrocketed. Since 2020, TB has increased year over year after having a downward trend, and measle cases have risen seventeen-fold over the mean number of cases reported last year, which was already abnormally high. Let’s identify one major factor causing the issue of rising infectious diseases in the United States (US) and offer solutions to the issue.2
An infectious disease is, “an illness due to a pathogen or its toxic product, which arises through transmission from an infected person, an infected animal, or a contaminated inanimate object to a susceptible host.3” If you suffered from a case of COVID-19, then you caught it by someone ill with the infection expelling the viral particulates into the air and you breathed them in. COVID is an airborne disease. An illustration of fomite contamination, one where you have touched a contaminated object and then introduced that contamination to your mucus membranes (eyes, nose, mouth), is norovirus. Last week, we discussed milk as a potential source of foodborne illness.
Infectious diseases are rising in the US for many reasons, including overcrowding, vaccine refusal or deprivation, and climate factors. However, migration magnifies the problem, spreading disease faster, farther, and wider than throughout most of human history. Travelers may not know they are sick when boarding planes, infecting not only those at the new destinations, but the fellow travelers on those planes who then go onto additional destinations. Illegal migrants also unknowingly or knowingly enter the US seeking a better life and better healthcare for themselves and their families while exposing legal residents to diseases that should not have made their way there. Further, ill, unscreened migrants spread infectious diseases widely because they scatter throughout the US and illegal aliens hide from authorities, usually in overcrowded living conditions4.
One action that can mitigate or and reverse the trend is to implement an aggressive vaccination program5. Politics needn’t be part of this, but education does. If legal US residents, visitors, and illegal migrants alike understand the importance of vaccines and have access to receive them, then the entire health of the US population will benefit. Second, those who are already sick should be treated and cared for properly until they recover fully. These are only two actions. They could be put into practice fairly quickly but would require funds, time, and expertise. The question is: Do we have the will to implement and see them come to fruition?
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Next week we shall explore lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and whether or not those lessons have brought value to our healthcare system and readiness.
The point of this article is to address some public health issues and offer actions can be put in place immediately to mitigate or even eradicate infectious diseases. It is not a forum for discussing the massive onslaught of illegal entries. That problem must be addressed elsewhere.