Duke Health

Measles cases and exposure have been reported at several locations in the Triangle. It’s important that you check your measles vaccination status to ensure it is up to date.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or breathes. If you were in a location with someone known to have measles, you may have been exposed, and you may be contagious before symptoms appear.

While there have been no cases of measles reported at any Duke Health locations, Duke Infection Prevention is doing everything it can to monitor the situation and minimize the public health risk. Here, Ibukun C. Kalu, MD, a specialist in pediatric infectious disease at Duke Health, answers frequently asked questions.

One in five children have abnormal levels of fats in their blood, like high cholesterol or triglycerides, and require special care to manage their condition now, before it becomes a problem in adulthood. Duke Health’s pediatric lipid disorders clinic brings together a team of experts to do just that. “We create individual care plans for children and their families,” said Duke Health pediatric endocrinologist Pinar Gumus Balikcioglu, MD, MHSc.

We live in an environment where plastic is in our clothing fibers, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the gum we chew, and the water we drink. Millions of plastic particles are ingested by people every year. What does that mean for our health and the environment?

As part of our ongoing Conversations in Cancer video series, Diane Reidy-Lagunes, MD, a medical oncologist at Duke Health, talks to Jason Somarelli, Ph.D., an assistant professor in medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine and a Duke Cancer Institute researcher who studies the effects of microplastics. Here, we cover the potential disease risks and what we can do to protect ourselves and future generations.