Worst Outbreak Of Measles In Over A Decade

Incidence of measles this year is the worst in over a decade, stated CDC on Thursday, fanning fears of the return of the malaise to US shores. Nearly half the cases involve children whose parents object to immunizations on various religious, philosophical, ideological, and other grounds.

In 2000, the federal Center for Disease Control had declared that measles was no longer spreading in the country. An average of 63 cases a year were reported since then, mainly of infections acquired from foreign sources.

But by July this year, there have already been 131 U.S. measles cases, compared to 42 cases in the entirety of last year. Of that number, 112 were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, the CDC stated.

In addition to measles, recent outbreaks of pertussis have underscored the dangerous trend of proliferating infectious diseases brought on by avoidance of vaccination. States require vaccination for admission to school and, in many cases, day care or preschool.

But home-schooled children aren't included in that regulation. Moreover, all states permit medical exemptions for a wide spectrum of conditions ranging from severe allergies and acute immune system disorders to neurological problems. Apart from two states, all others allow religious exemption too.

In states where non-medical waivers for vaccinations are easy to procure, exemptions have increased almost twofold. Abstainers from vaccination have risen from 1.26 percent in 1991 to 2.5 percent in 2004, according to the latest data.

Objections to inoculation, especially for young children, mainly concern introducing paraphernalia of toxins into the body. Besides, wary of alleged links to serious disorders like asthma and autism, many parents refrain from vaccinating their children to ‘protect’ them from the risks. Health officials however pooh-pooh these fears perfunctorily and maintain that the benefits of inoculation far outweigh the risk.

The downward trend revealed by vaccine registers increasingly threatens to breach the necessary level of protection that prevents disease from spreading. When enough people in a community are immune to a disease, they form a bulwark of resistance against germs and prevent it from afflicting weaker members. This is also referred to as "herd immunity."

Certain diseases, like mumps, can be reined in with a herd immunity threshold of about 75 percent. But the more virulent diseases, such as measles, require collective immunity of up to 94 percent to avoid infection, according to the CDC.