Infectious Diseases Are Back

Axios reports that infectious diseases are back.

Why it matters: Infectious diseases kill far fewer today than a century ago, the AP notes, but the numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

• Measles hit their highest U.S. rate in 27 years, concentrated among Orthodox Jews.
• Hepatitis A is up more than 10x from 2017, sparked by an outbreak among the homeless and drug users.
• And eastern equine encephalitis killed 15 of the 38 people diagnosed this year. The 38 cases is double the previous rate.

The big picture: America remains very fortunate compared to our fellow global citizens.

• Measles killed 142,300 people worldwide in 2018, compared to zero in the U.S. in 2019.

Between the lines: America's measles elimination status isn't as important as "the fact that we remain highly vulnerable," Baylor pediatrics professor Peter Hotez told Axios' Eileen Drage O'Reilly earlier this year.

• There are "at least 100 geographic pockets in the U.S. where a high percentage of kids are not being vaccinated, together with measles cases now regularly imported from Europe where measles is even more widespread," Hotez said.

Much of the problem stems from the antivaccine movement. In turn, that movement has draw fuel from Russian disinformation campaigns.