Rubella, measles, smallpox — gone for now, but not forever?
AUSTRALIA has beaten rubella, a disease that can cause deaths or defects in unborn babies. But sometimes these diseases can return, while new ones lurk on the horizon, as Tory Shepherd reports.
HALLOWEEN this year coincided with the end of a horror disease in Australia. The World Health Organisation announced yesterday that rubella had been eradicated.
Rubella, often called German measles, is a devastating disease. While it may just cause joint pain and a rash in adults, it leaves a pregnant woman with a high chance her child will be born deaf or with a range of issues, and a one-in-five chance she will miscarry.
We have vaccines to thank for an end to that.
The free rubella vaccine has been given to children for three decades and once enough people have been immunised a community is considered to have “herd immunity”. That means the disease should no longer spread, protecting pregnant women.
That is very good news.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia’s rubella immunisation rates for five-year-olds were the highest on record at 94.62 per cent.
“The elimination of rubella is a great day for public health in Australia and sends a powerful message that vaccinations work,” he said.
“I commend the efforts of Australia’s health professionals over the decades and the millions of parents who ensure their children are always vaccinated.
“The science is in and the medical experts’ advice is absolute – vaccinations save lives and protect lives and they are an essential part of a healthy society.”
Don’t get complacent, though – as diseases dwindle, funding might be withdrawn; people and governments lose focus.
Just like a horror film, there’s enough wriggle room for a sequel.
Until it’s wiped out around the world, rubella could still sneak in from overseas. Like polio and smallpox, we’re winning the battle. The enemy is defeated … but as in any good nailbiter, they could rise again.
And there are other enemies lurking – we may have survived bird flu and swine flu, but there are new variants cropping up all the time and the next one could be the one that sweeps the world.
There’s a reason outbreak films are a perennial hit. There is serious concern about the next global pandemic.
But first:
DISEASES THAT COULD STAGE A COMEBACK
RUBELLA: Eradicating rubella in Australia is absolutely worth celebrating. It’s a victory for vaccines, a medical milestone and a salve for expectant mothers. But it still exists. In fact, Japan is in the middle of an outbreak right now.
SMALLPOX: It was highly contagious, deadly and feared. But an aggressive vaccination campaign saw it off … for now. Scientists have found it in permafrost in Siberia. That permafrost is melting, thanks to climate change, raising the spectre that the bacteria could come back to life.
More frighteningly, smallpox could be weaponised, put in a missile head, and sent into a major city.
MEASLES: Five years ago Australia was declared “measles-free”, but that doesn’t actually mean we’re measles-free. Since then it has arrived from overseas, but even more frighteningly, it has surged in pockets across the country where parents refuse to vaccinate their kids.
While it is targeted for global eradication, it hasn’t happened. There is an outbreak in Europe right now.
POLIO: Not such a distant memory in Australia – particularly those who suffer its lingering effects. Australia is officially polio-free. But once again, that is not globally true. Our near neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is in the throes of an outbreak.
With these old diseases it’s a matter of being alert, not alarmed.
In Australia we have very good systems for picking up any new incidences of notifiable diseases, and processes that kick in to isolate them.
But then there are the diseases we haven’t really dealt with yet …
THREATS ON THE HORIZON
The World Health Organisation keep a list of priority diseases to tackle.
The WHO warns “this is not an exhaustive list, nor does it indicate the most likely causes of the next epidemic”.
WHO lists some that Australians have probably never heard of – such as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever – along with others that have hit the headlines, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Ebola virus disease, and Zika.
To that list it adds the ominous sounding Disease X.
Disease X is the codename for an as-yet-unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international pandemic.
“History tells us that it is likely the next big outbreak will be something we have not seen before,” WHO committee science adviser John-Arne Rottingen said. "It may seem strange to be adding an 'X' but the point is to make sure we prepare and plan flexibly in terms of vaccines and diagnostic tests.
“We want to see 'plug and play' platforms developed which will work for any, or a wide number of diseases; systems that will allow us to create countermeasures at speed.”
Diseases are constantly being created, and mutated, and mixed between species.
They can start to build momentum in the wilds of Africa, or the crowded urban jungles of China.
Then they’re just a plane flight away.
The next big thing could be an influenza variant, or a genetically engineered terror weapon, or … well, we don’t know. Hence the “X”.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Keep up your vaccinations, wash your hands. Don’t trust those thermal scanners to pick up infected people coming in – they didn’t really work.
If a pandemic strikes, we’ll probably know about it long before it hits Australia.
Then it will be time to stock up on water, battery-powered radios and Spam.
And keep an eye on the government, make sure it’s funding research into potential saviours like a universal flu vaccine, and that it has a good strategy for if the worst does happen.
Oh, and watch out for superbugs. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are spreading amid warnings we could return to the pre-antibiotic era, when a simple scratch could kill you.
Anyway, be alert but not alarmed.
And celebrate the eradication of rubella!