Nurse's Role in Countering Measles Epidemic - Essay Sample

Introduction

As a nurse working in a community and hospital setting where measles epidemic has emerged, it is important to take quick measures meant to counter the spread of the infection among community members. According to Carrico, Garrett, Balcom, and Glowicz, (2018), among the roles that such a nurse could play in preventing the spread of the measles epidemic include leading preparedness initiative about measles among the community members, managing the most appropriate response interventions and activities such as the conduction of rapid radical diagnosis to prevent its further spread as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the community's response tactics to ensure that the most effective response tactics take preference.

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What global considerations of infectious disease must you keep in mind?

However, despite the high urge to ensure that the epidemic is compelled from spreading further, there is the need for nurses involved in the process to keep in mind the various global considerations of infectious diseases such as measles to avoid contracting the infectious disease. Among those considerations include taking precautions such as respiratory hygiene and hand hygiene aimed at protecting the nurse from contracting the infection (Patterson, 2015). Besides, the nurse needs to be vaccinated against measles to avoid instances of contracting the disease in the process of offering interventions to the infected as well as applying quarantine to separate those infected individuals from the uninfected (Zhang et al., 2016).

What policy issues do you need to consider?

To void instances of further spread of the infection in the future, a clinical practitioner needs to consider immunization as a policy issue (MacDonald et al., 2018). Additionally, in instances where measles morbidity and mortality among infants below nine months present a significant problem, it would be necessary for the nurse to give an extra standard measles vaccine as early as sixth months of age in addition to the scheduled dose.

How did measles re-emerge after so many years?

Since the re-emergence of measles has posed a challenge to the entire health fraternity, assessing the factors that have led to its re-emergence after many years would greatly help diagnose and prevent its emergence in the future. Among the factors that have led to its re-emergence include poor vaccines coverage, importation of cases among travelers traveling from epidemic areas and measles vaccine hesitancy (Leite, Barreto, & Sousa, 2015). If these issues are amicably addressed, then measles could be countered and prevented from re-emerging in the future.

References

Carrico, R. M., Garrett, H., Balcom, D., & Glowicz, J. B. (2018). Infection prevention and control core practices. Nursing, 48(8), 22-28. doi:10.1097/01.nurse.0000541385.06363.73

Leite, R. D., Barreto, J. L., & Sousa, A. Q. (2015). Measles Reemergence in Ceara, Northeast Brazil, 15 Years after Elimination. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 21(9), 1681-1683. doi:10.3201/eid2109.150391

MacDonald, N. E., Harmon, S., Dube, E., Steenbeek, A., Crowcroft, N., Opel, D. J., ... Butler, R. (2018). Mandatory infant & childhood immunization: Rationales, issues, and knowledge gaps. Vaccine, 36(39), 5811-5818. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.08.042

Patterson, C. E. (2015). Basic principles of infection control. Nursing Made Incredibly Easy!, 13(3), 28-37. doi:10.1097/01.nme.0000462644.52688.6a

Zhang, Z., Zhao, Y., Yang, L., Lu, C., Meng, Y., Guan, X., ... Yu, J. (2016). Measles Outbreak among Previously Immunized Adult Healthcare Workers, China, 2015. Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, 2016, 1-6. doi:10.1155/2016/1742530