A potentially deadly virus that was once eradicated, appears to be making somewhat of a comeback and we've already seen at least one case in San Diego.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an advisory Monday, after seeing an increase in measles cases.
They're urging public health officials to make sure kids get their measles vaccines.
“It’s a highly contagious virus. it spreads airborne, which means it can travel long distances. If someone with measles walks into a room of 100 people who are not immune, 90 of those 100 people will get measles,” explained Edmund Milder, MD at Rady Children’s Hospital.
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So far this year, the CDC says there have been 58 cases of the highly contagious virus reported in 17 states, including California. That already equals the number of cases reported in all of 2023.
San Diego County health officials confirmed the first measles case of the year in the county, last month.
They say the unimmunized 1-year-old, who was hospitalized, had traveled overseas.
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According to the CDC, 93% of this year's measles cases have been linked to children 1 year or older who've not yet gotten their measles-mumps-rubella vaccination or MMR.
“Every parent is different,” said Traci Potter, who has an 8-year-old daughter. “Some parents worry about the aftereffects of vaccinations. I worry about my daughter getting something and then dying from it or not recovering correctly."
Data from the CDC shows vaccination rates among kindergartners have decreased from 95% percent in 2019 to 93% at the start of 2022, leaving about 250,000 kindergartners susceptible to measles each year.
“It means for families that do vaccinate, it still increases the risk a bit and also for the whole community it’s a bigger burden. People are going to get sick. Parents will get sick or other relatives,” said Rosemary Morrison who’s the mother of a 2-year-old.
“The danger is when a lot of people get it, 1 out of 1000 infections will lead to inflammation of the brain or encephalitis which can have permanent effects. And about 1 in 1000 can die, " explained Dr. Milder.
Parents like Potter are hoping people will heed the CDC warning and remember what happened during the pandemic.
"If you don’t, you’ll carry it with you and then whoever is not vaccinated, it will keep spreading. We've already seen this, 3 years ago, four years ago and there was no vaccination for that," said Potter.
According to the CDC, children should get their first MMR dose of the vaccine between 12 to 15 months old. If your child is traveling internationally, that can be moved up to 6 months.
