Measles could become endemic again in the United States
Measles is making a comeback in the form of episodic outbreaks in the United States, due to lower childhood vaccination rates. Epidemiologists are warning that the highly contagious viral disease could make a lasting comeback.
Measles was officially declared eradicated in the United States in 2000. But in recent months, outbreaks have been increasing in the country. The situation could worsen if childhood vaccination rates remain at their current levels, reports the Los Angeles Times , citing research by two epidemiologists.
Nathan Lo and Mathew Kiang, epidemiologists at Stanford University School of Medicine in the United States, wondered what might happen if current childhood measles vaccination rates remained unchanged in the future. Their study has just been published in Jama .
They estimate that if measles vaccination rates remain as low as they are today in the future – in the period 2023-2024, between 85% and 93% of children were vaccinated when they entered kindergarten – this viral disease will become endemic again, “ which means that it will rage permanently, like the flu , ” assures the Californian daily.
In some areas or communities affected by this outbreak, there are already no longer enough vaccinated people to stop the spread of this viral disease, which means that herd immunity is no longer assured there – as a reminder, herd immunity is achieved when a significant percentage of a population is protected (by the vaccine or after being infected), which means that even if a person is infected, they will not be able to transmit the virus, because it will encounter too many protected individuals.
Of course, the situation will be nothing like it was before the vaccine. However, the low vaccination rate among American children against measles—for example, they are lower than before the pandemic, when their vaccination rate was 95%—could have serious consequences.
The Los Angeles Times summarizes the researchers' calculations: “There could be as many as 851,300 cases by 2050, [resulting in] 170,000 hospitalizations, nearly 900 debilitating and potentially fatal neurological complications, and some 2,550 deaths.”
Mathew Kiang explained to the daily the absolute necessity of increasing vaccination rates:
“If nothing changes, we can fear the worst in about twenty years.”
As a reminder, the official eradication of measles, as announced in 2000, “means that the disease has become sufficiently rare (and immunity so widespread) that even if one or two cases were to occur, transmission of the virus would be rapidly stopped.”
