Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.
The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a
resurgence of measles nationwide, fueled by distrust in vaccines that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and
President Trump have amplified. Public health experts have long seen measles as a harbinger: Because it is so exceptionally contagious, it can be the first disease to spike as vaccination rates broadly decline, and a sign of more to come.
For some of these diseases, national data show clear and substantial increases in recent years; for others, the increases are small, or there are anecdotal indications from doctors on the ground of increases that public statistics don’t currently confirm.
While most children recover, these diseases aren’t benign. Many children endure extended hospitalizations. Some infections can be fatal.
Dr. Meghan Hofto, a pediatric hospitalist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is one of the doctors who said she is seeing more illnesses that she used to encounter only rarely. This year, she and her colleagues have treated more children than usual with persistent diarrhea. A child with a run-of-the-mill stomach virus might need a day or so of IV fluids, but these patients were being hospitalized for three or four days.
The culprit: Rotavirus, which once caused tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year in the United States but was largely swept away by vaccines introduced 20 years ago. These vaccines were so effective that Dr. Hofto could recall treating only four or five children with rotavirus in the past decade. Now, she said she had treated about that many already this year, and none of them were vaccinated.
Doctors nationwide are encountering more children with whooping cough, bacterial infections and other serious illnesses, as well as more adults refusing tetanus shots.
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