Measles Comeback

It's a disease you probably haven't heard much about recently. But it's making a strong comeback and its proving deadly for some.

We're talking about measles; something most of use don't even think about these days. You've probably only hear about it when your kids get vaccinated with the MMR, that's the measles, mumps and rubella shot.

That's because over the last few decades we've made great strides in holding this disease at bay, at least here in the U.S. Back in the 1950s there were up to 4 million cases of measles in this country with about 500 people dying because of it every year. The vaccine, introduced in 1963, dramatically cut that down. But it looks like it's starting to come back. This year there have been 205 cases, the most in a decade. Typically we only get about 50 cases per year, so this is a 5-fold increase. Many of these come from travelers to other countries including Europe where they are seeing very large numbers of measles cases. France along has had 14,000. According to The World Health Organization, many of these outbreaks, here and in other parts of the world, happen because of low vaccination rates, making people, and children in particular, more susceptible to the virus.

And since measles can prove deadly, especially to infants, public health experts are pushing for parents to continue to get their children vaccinated against this and other diseases, even ones most of us might have thought were a thing of the past.