A highly infectious disease declared eliminated in the U.S. at the turn of the century threatens to reestablish itself in the country following recent outbreaks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday.
The CDC recorded 97 cases of measles in the first quarter of 2024, according to a study published as part of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The number indicated a “more than a seventeenfold increase over the mean number of cases reported during the first quarter of 2020–2023 (five cases),” the study shows. The number also represented “29% of all 338 measles cases reported during January 1, 2020–March 28, 2024,” according to the study.
Nearly seven out of 10 cases (68% of 338) were detected in unvaccinated persons and the vaccination status of another 23% was unknown, according to the study. Only 29 (9%) of the 338 individuals had received at least one dose of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Nearly six out of 10 cases occurred in individuals aged 16 months — 19 years, according to the study.
Some 326 (96%) of the 338 cases were reportedly associated with an importation of the disease due to international travel to and/or from Eastern Mediterranean and African countries. The number of imported cases originating in Europe and South-East Asia jumped from a mean of two per year from each region to six between January and March 2024, the study’s authors reported.
No death has been reported to the CDC so far.
Measles has been considered eliminated in the U.S. for nearly 25 years.
But this year’s high case count threatens that status, a CDC report warns. https://t.co/DHCAF30XuI
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 11, 2024
The febrile rash illness, which was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, retained that status by the end of 2023 due to robust epidemiological surveillance, high population immunity and the absence of a 12-consecutive-month-long endemic transmission, the CDC noted. However, about 250,000 kindergarten children remained at risk of contracting the disease as population clusters remained unvaccinated and herd immunity from double-dose vaccination stood at less than the Healthy People 2030 target of 95%, the study stated. (RELATED: CDC Data Reveals Alarming Rise In STI Rates In Adults Over 55)
A global rise in measles cases and decreased vaccination rates within the U.S. and across the world currently threaten the status of the U.S. as an endemic measles-free country. Two prolonged outbreaks among under-vaccinated clusters in New York and New York City in 2019 accounted for nearly three out of every 10 reported cases from 2001–2019 and threatened the status, according to the study.
Central Ohio witnessed a measles outbreak in 2022, with 94% of the patients being unvaccinated and 42% hospitalized, the study reported.
Florida witnessed a measles outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary School in Feb. 2024. The state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, deferred to parents or guardians regarding sending their wards to school while acknowledging the CDC’s stipulated recommendation for the unvaccinated to stay at home, WPLG reported.