A time-honored tradition for young athletes, the Little League World Series had an unexpected guest last year — measles. In August 2007 a 12-year-old boy from Japan had unknowingly contracted the infection and traveled to the United States to participate in the international boys' baseball championship in Pennsylvania.
Because the event attracted about 265,000 participants and spectators from around the world, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched an investigation to find out if other people had also become infected around the same time with measles (which is now very rare in the United States due to the success of our immunization program).
What they discovered: that single carrier of measles, brought in from overseas, did spread the disease to six others (including a fellow passenger seated near the boy on a flight as well as an airport worker).
This case drives home the point of the importance of immunizations, says the CDC. A disease introduced by just one unimmunized person — either an American traveling overseas or someone coming into the United States — could cause serious damage if immunization rates fell.
Granted, a single child's chance of catching a disease is low if everyone else is immunized. But each person who isn't immunized gives these highly contagious diseases one more chance to spread. That why's it's only safe to stop vaccinations for a particular disease when that disease has been totally wiped out worldwide, as in the case of smallpox.
More on Measles
Also called rubeola, measles is a highly contagious respiratory infection that's brought on by a virus. It causes a total-body skin rash and flu-like symptoms, including a fever, cough, and runny nose.
In some cases, measles can lead to other health problems, such as croup, and infections like bronchitis, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, conjunctivitis (pinkeye), myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). Measles also can make the body more susceptible to ear infections and bacterial infections.
Although measles very rarely crops up in the United States these days, an epidemic of the disease broke out here between 1989 and 1991 when lapsing rates of immunizations among preschoolers led to a sharp increase in the number of measles cases, deaths, and children with permanent measles-related brain damage.
The only surefire way to prevent your kids from getting measles is immunization. However, some parents may be worried about the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella [German measles]) because of unsubstantiated theories claiming that the vaccine causes autism.
But study after study has found no scientific evidence that autism is caused by any single vaccine (including MMR), combination of vaccines, or the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was once widely used in many childhood vaccines.
What This Means to You
A series of simple shots given from infancy to the teen years can fend off some serious illnesses in millions of kids. In fact, a recent study by the CDC showed that routine childhood immunizations in the United States have spurred the largest-ever decline in cases of many devastating — but now highly preventable — diseases.
Even though you may wonder why your child needs immunizations if many of the diseases they protect against are no longer prevalent in the United States, the fact is that infectious diseases that are rare or nonexistent here (because of immunization programs like measles and polio) are still huge problems in other parts of the world. If immunization rates are allowed to drop among U.S. children, the spark for a major epidemic would be only an airplane flight away.
And it's important to make sure kids get all of the immunizations they need at every age — not just in the infant and toddler years, when most vaccines are given. Routine vaccines and boosters are also recommended between the ages of 4 and 6, 11 and 12, and then again before teens enter college.
New boosters and vaccines are also added to the childhood immunization schedule all the time — like the now-recommended chickenpox booster for 4- to 6-year-olds and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for 11- to 12-year-old girls.
So, make sure to schedule and keep all of your family's regular checkups and get routine vaccinations on schedule. Also, ask your doctor if your kids need any catch-up immunizations or boosters to ensure that their protection is up to date.
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date reviewed: February 2008
Source: "Multistate Measles Outbreak Associated with an International Youth Sporting Event — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Texas, August–September 2007," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), Feb. 22, 2008.
