Given the threat posed by a 1,000 cases of measles on our doorstep, I wanted to find out how our county’s health department was responding to both the change in public attitudes and the outbreak itself. After all, measles was supposedly eradicated from the US a quarter=century ago.

Natalie Trachsel, who is the current health director for the county, and Elizabeth Burnett, a nurse with the health department, agreed that it would be a good idea to share what they’ve been doing, and what everyone else in the county should be doing, too.

Resources

• Polk County Communicable Disease Updates
  
• 
  NC Division of Public Health Measles Dashboard
  
• Check your immunity quiz
  
• Enabling Vaccine Uptake: Strategies for the Public Health Sector (British Journal of Hospital Medicine)
• Exposure locations
  
• Immune amnesia
  
• Helps protect against other diseases: