Measles is making a minor comeback in the United States, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts are pointing to people not getting vaccinated as the reason. After being virtually eliminated in the U.S., there have been 397 confirmed cases from January 1, 2014 to June 6, 2014,
CDC reports. That’s a 20-year high from 2000, when measles were reported to be eliminated (see table).
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| Source: CDC |
Analyzing the CDC data, the
New York Times observed that the reported cases came from 20 states, including Connecticut, but were mostly concentrated in three areas. Half of the cases are in an Amish community in Ohio where missionaries returned from the Philippines with the virus. The Amish are unvaccinated for religious reasons.
Orange County and the San Francisco Bay Area reported 60 cases, where large numbers of wealthy parents refused to vaccinate their children.
The New York City area reported 26 cases, mostly concentrated in upper Manhattan, where measles are “believed to have spread in hospital waiting rooms because doctors and nurses did not promptly recognize the symptoms.”
Measles most often causes a fever and a rash, but, in some cases, can cause pneumonia, brain damage, deafness, and death (in about 0.1% of cases), the Times reported. The vaccine for measles went into widespread use in the United States in the 1960s.
