Rubela Is Not Extinct

    Do you recall your history of the settling of America? Remember how you learned that one of the worst things the white man brought to these shores was smallpox and measles? Indian villages were decimated when either disease struck. And measles was just about as bad as smallpox in its effect on native populations.

     Measles was never a disease to discount, even for Europeans who had been exposed to it most of their lives. And it wasn’t any fun for a kid in 1943 either. Because of the warning that it could harm a child’s eyes, the sick room was kept dark, making reading or playing nearly impossible. 

     Measles caused permanent deafness in countless people, and the complications from other diseases made it a very real threat to survival.

     I remember when the measles vaccine was announced. It was almost too good to be true. Each of my four children were vaccinated, and it was a relief to know that they would never get the disease.

    Fast forward to 2014. For several years there have periodically been scary articles published that the measles vaccine causes harm to some children. The  result is that thousands of parents decided to opt out of the vaccination program. So now we have thousands of people who are completely unprotected.

    Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a virus named rubella. The symptoms are fever, runny nose, cough and a rash all over the body. Very often a sick child will also get an ear infection or pneumonia, and then they are very sick.

    If measles had been stamped out all over the world, similar to what has happened to polio, there would be no problem. But the rubella virus is alive and well in many of the underdeveloped nations of the world.

    From January 1 to April 20 more than 26,000 suspected and 6,000 confirmed cases of measles have been reported in the Philippines. As of May 23, 22 U.S. travelers, mostly unvaccinated, who returned from the Philippines have become sick with measles.

Since measles is a virus, antibiotics won’t cure the disease, and the ailment has been rare enough in the past 25 years that doctors often don’t recognize it.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends that travelers to the Philippines protect themselves by making sure they are vaccinated against measles, particularly infants 6 - 11 months of age (1 dose of measles vaccine) and children 12 months or older (2 doses of measles vaccine). Likewise, adults should be vaccinated before any foreign travel.

    Isn’t it interesting how people get complacent? No one they know has gotten sick with measles, so it must be safe to leave their children (and often themselves) unprotected. In this case ignorance is definitely NOT bliss.