No one gets measles anymore, right? Think again. Government health officials are reporting cases in nine states. And only one of the people recently infected with the highly contagious disease — usually considered very rare in the United States — had been vaccinated against it.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 64 people contracted measles from January through April 2008 — the highest rate since this same time in 2001. Among those were 14 babies who were simply too young to get the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles) vaccine (called MMR).
And many of the kids infected hadn't been immunized because their parents "claimed exemption from vaccination due to religious or personal beliefs."
Although it doesn't occur very often in the United States, measles still affects 20 million people worldwide every year, says the CDC. And, despite the common perception that the disease just causes a nasty rash, measles can actually be very serious and even deadly — globally, it killed 311,000 kids under age 5 in 2005 alone.
Another epidemic of the disease broke out in the United States 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.
More on Measles
Also called rubeola, measles is brought on by a virus and can spread easily through the air by sneezing and coughing. 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.
The only way to prevent your kids from getting measles is immunization. Children should get the MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months and then the follow-up booster shot between 4 and 6 years. And if you're planning to take a trip abroad with your baby in tow, infants ages 6 to 11 months should get the MMR vaccine, too.
However, some parents may be worried about the MMR vaccine 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), a combination of vaccines, or the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was once widely used in many childhood vaccines (including MMR) but has since been eliminated.
What This Means to You
A series of simple shots given from infancy to the teen years can fend off some major illnesses in millions of kids. In fact, a recent CDC study 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.
Yet, a more recent CDC study found that more than a quarter of young U.S. kids (ages 18 months to 3 years) aren't getting their vaccines on time.
Even though you may wonder why your children need 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.
That means if immunization rates are allowed to drop among U.S. children, the spark for a major epidemic would be only an airplane flight away — when a disease could be introduced by just one unimmunized person (either an American traveling overseas or someone coming into the United States). Case in point: One 12-year-old boy from Japan who unknowingly had measles came to the United States for the August 2007 Little League World Series and passed the infection on to others.
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.
So, even if you've made the decision to not vaccinate your children, it's not just your kids who could be at risk of catching certain preventable diseases — they could pass them on to other children, too (like the infants in the recent measles outbreaks who were too young to be vaccinated).
That why 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.
So, make sure your kids get all of the immunizations they need on time at every age:
- Schedule and keep all of your family's regular checkups.
- Get routine vaccinations on schedule as children grow — 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.
- Find out when your kids can get any vaccine that's in short supply.
- Ask your doctor about any new vaccines. Boosters and vaccines are 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.
- Never skip a dose in a vaccine series. Kids don't have adequate protection if they don't get all of the recommended doses for each series at the right time.
- Ask your doctor if you or your kids need any catch-up immunizations or boosters to ensure that your protection is up to date, especially if you're planning to travel overseas.
Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: May 2008
