The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging health care providers to be “on alert” for patients with symptoms of measles — a virus declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 — after nearly two dozen cases have been reported across the country in the past month.
Between Dec. 1 and Jan. 23, the CDC has been notified of 23 measles cases, including seven “direct importations” by international travelers and two outbreaks with more than five cases each, according to a letter the federal agency sent to clinicians last week.
Most of the cases were among children and teenagers who had not been vaccinated against the virus, and nine of them were reported by the health department in Philadelphia — a city that is a two-hour drive from Baltimore. Additionally, the Virginia Department of Health notified people earlier this month that they may have been exposed to measles if they were at Dulles International Airport on Jan. 3 or at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 4.
The outbreak may be scary, said Dr. Theresa Nguyen — chair of pediatrics at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson — but it’s important for parents not to panic.
Instead, she said, “the message is, ‘Get your children vaccinated.’”
The measles vaccine used today, MMR — which also protects people against mumps and rubella — was approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than 50 years ago. But the nationwide MMR vaccination rate has fallen by two percentage points over the past two school years, after sitting firmly at 95% for 10 years. In Maryland, the child vaccine exemption rate increased by 0.4 percentage points from the 2021-22 school year to the 2022-23 school year.
Measles, a very contagious viral illness characterized by a high fever, rash, cough, runny nose and pinkeye, hasn’t been endemic in the U.S. in more than 20 years. But in 1998, the progress made in convincing parents to vaccinate their children was jeopardized by the
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