This year, more than 10,000 cases of measles have been reported in France and more elsewhere in Europe and in India. A record number of cases have been reported in the United States too – more than double last year’s incidence and the most seen in the U.S. since 1996. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the additional cases were “imported” by infected travelers, both U.S. residents returning home and foreign visitors.
By now, this one-time childhood scourge should be a quaint artifact of the past, thanks to vaccines that have almost wiped it out in the U.S. and Western Europe while making big gains elsewhere in the world. The CDC reports that the disease killed more than 197,000 people in 2008 and that’s down from the 737,000 deaths reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000 and before a campaign to immunize 700 million children worldwide with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. Before the vaccine was developed, measles took 450-500 lives a year in the United States.
Despite such progress, however, measles outbreaks remain a huge problem as vaccination programs risk being undermined if worldwide efforts to treat kids aren’t sustained. The WHO warns that decreased political and financial commitment to vaccination could result in an estimated 1.7 million measles-related deaths worldwide between 2010 and 2013, with more than half a million deaths in 2013 alone.
We usually don’t think of measles as a killer disease, but clearly it can be much more than a childhood nuisance. It’s easily spread – even before you see the rash, droplets from a cough or sneeze from an infected person can transmit the virus. The little bugs can live in the air or on contaminated surfaces for up to two hours.
Luckily, the characteristic itchy red spots, fever, coughing, sore throat, pink eye and sensitivity to light are all most kids can expect when the virus invades. But as the deaths (now and in the past) attest, not everyone infected is lucky: complications include severe diarrhea, pneumonia, blindness, and encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can cause vomiting, convulsions, and even coma or death.
The measles incidents seen this year in the U.S., Canada and Europe should never have occurred. The vaccine is inexpensive and works really well, so it isn’t surprising that 89 percent of the cases were among those who haven’t had shots.
Suspicions that the vaccine could cause autism, fanned by a study that has since been discredited, led many parents to refuse to have their children immunized. The largest study of the alleged link between the vaccine and autism involved more than 500,000 children. It was published in 2002 and found no evidence to support a connection between autism and the measles vaccine. Other studies have come to the same conclusion.
Aside from the autism controversy some parents decline to get their kids vaccinated for religious reasons; some are convinced that the body’s immune system will do a better job while others just never get around to it.
So far this year, of the 156 cases of measles reported in the U.S., at least 40 percent of the kids (and some adults) ended up in the hospital. Nine of them had pneumonia. Fortunately, none had encephalitis, and none died. In France, six patients died. None of this had to happen.
What’s your take on vaccination for measles?
CONNECT THE DOTS
For more on who is at risk and the threat measles presents take a look at what the World Health Organization has to say. To learn more about the vaccine and its safety see this CDC page. And here’s where you can find out who should not be vaccinated.
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