The number of measles cases in the US has reached a 33-year record high, years after it was officially eliminated in the country, as a result of which public health experts emerged that other diseases could experience a similar revival.
According to the latter, there were 1,288 confirmed measles cases in the US this year facts Released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That is the largest number of cases that has been reported in the country since then 1992- Really years before the disease was explained, a highly contagious disease from American measles is equipped that can lead to serious health complications, including death, but can be prevented vaccine via measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Experts in the field of public health have largely attributed his official elimination of the US to a successful vaccination program. In recent years, however, the vaccination rates have fallen and the number of measles cases has risen. In 92% of the cases that have been confirmed in the country this year so far, CDC data, the person who received measles, was not vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.
Read more: Do you need a measles vaccine booster?
The alarming milestone of Nieuwe Case did not come as a surprise for many people in the field of public health.
“I expected that we would hit this record this year,” says Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and founder of the newsletter Your local epidemiologist. “But it was more of the reality that hit that this finally happened – that we are real here at the moment in 2025. And I am very worried about what it means for the future.”
Experts warn that the rise in measles cases could be a harbinger of an increase in the prevalence of other diseases.
“Measles is the The most contagious virus On Earth, so it is often the first to rise when the vaccination coverage decreases, “says Jetelina.” We have succeeded in keeping decades at bay thanks to high vaccination rates, but those rates are sliding. “
Experts have pointed to various reasons for falling vaccination rates, including one Increase in the hesitation of vaccine In the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemie and as vaccine sceptics such as health and human service secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have won fame.
Kennedy, who has long spread disinformation on vaccines, last month removed all 17 members from a CDC vaccine advice committee and various members who have previously been appointed in their place Vaccine skeptical view. The new committee meeting For the first time later, voting to stop recommending flu shots that Thimerosal contain, an additive that the anti-vaccine movement has been attacked for years despite countless scientific studies. no proof that the trace amounts in some vaccines are harmful. The committee also indicated that it will revise some immunisations in children, so that the door remains open to possible changes in the schedule of vaccinations in children.
The threshold for herd -immunity against measles is generally considered To be 95%, which means that 95% of people must be vaccinated against the disease to prevent it from spreading. Data indicates that the US has now fallen under that threshold: in the 2023-2024 school year the vaccination coverage among toddlers was only 92.7%, according to the CDC.
If this trend continues for other immunisations, experts say, it is possible that other diseases can rise. However, which diseases can be, “depends on how bad this will be,” says Jetelina. Many diseases have a lower herd – immunity threshold than measles – polios for example About 80%- So “it is going much more costs” for vaccination percentages to drop it drastically, she adds.
Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, says he fears that the US may be confronted with increasing cases of mumps and rubella, because the MMR vaccine also protects against those diseases. The US has already experienced an increase in whooping cough cases, partly due to the falling vaccination rates, as well as the introduction From a new type of vaccine for the disease in the 1990s to replace one that was more effective but also had more side effects.
“I think that all vaccine to prevent diseases at the moment in one way or another run the risk of experiencing a large disease,” says Osterholm. “I think over time you will see more of this vaccine -prevent diseases that come back, and we are going to see children seriously ill and die.”
Public Health Experts describe the feeling that America has suffered under a kind of memory loss about how seriously many of these diseases are and why officials have encouraged to be vaccinated against them. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says he wants more people to understand how dangerous measles can be.
“Those two little girls who who were six-year-old and eight-year-old who died in West-Texas products perfectly healthy children,” says Offit. “The reason she died because measles can kill someone, and I think we live in this kind of blissful ignorance, and you never think it will happen to you until it happens to you.”
According to the CDC, thirteen percent of confirmed measles cases in the US led to hospitalization, including 21% of the cases in children five or younger. It is confirmed that three people have died.
At the same time, experts emphasize that this problem goes beyond measles.
“I want people to realize that this is not just about measles,” says Jetelina. “It is much more than a flare -up of an infectious disease; it is a symbol of broken trust, eroded progress, the rise of individualism that collectively replaces well, this system that is bursting with the weight of disinvestment and distrust.”
“Measles is a canary in the coal mine, and it indicates something that has gone seriously,” she continues. “It is a unraveling of decades of progress, and there is a lot that has to be done, so that we do not stay back.”
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