At least 13 people in the Boston area, including a pregnant woman, have been diagnosed with German measles in the past 1 1/2 months, health officials said. The rare outbreak of rubella has affected mainly inmates and staff of local jails, according to the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals. Two homeless people also contracted the disease, and two other people were infected by contact with jail inmates or staff. Rubella is a contagious disease that can cause birth defects such as blindness, deafness and heart problems if contracted by a pregnant woman.

written by Air and Water Borne Diseases

Federal health officials said today that there have been at least nine outbreaks of rubella in Amish communities in at least four states. The Centers for Disease Control said that more than 400 cases of rubella have been reported since the start of the year in Amish communities in Michigan, New York, Ohio and Tennessee. In addition, at least six Pennsylvania counties have confirmed rubella cases among Amish people, “suggesting widespread rubella activity” among the Amish in that state, the agency said.

written by Air and Water Borne Diseases

Under air-borne diseases, by a somewhat loose usage, we may include a long list of diseases in which the channels of entrance and exit are the air passages. The medium of transfer is the air, in which the bacteria, usually breathed, coughed, or sneezed out in droplets, pass from person to person. This group of infections includes some of the most important diseases which affect mankind. This group would still be of the utmost importance if it included no diseases in addition to tuberculosis and pneumonia, which have been running a close race to see which could kill the more people in a year. Just at present pneumonia is in the lead, but pneumonia cannot compare with tuberculosis as a cause of poverty and social ills. Smallpox, diphtheria, and the so-called children’s diseases—measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and chickenpox—are all transferred by the droplet method. In some of these diseases we do not know the actual germ, but it has been shown that they are carried from person to person in the air.

written by Air and Water Borne Diseases