In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles as "eliminated" from the U.S, meaning there was an absence of continuous disease transmission for more than 12 months. But now, about 15 years later, the nation is facing a large outbreak of the disease tied to Disneyland in California.
This outbreak could mean that measles is in the U.S. for good, experts told Bloomberg.
"My biggest fear is we will re-establish transmission and have many more cases," Walter Orenstein, MD, associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta, told Bloomberg.
However, another expert — Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — said the nation is more likely to face more outbreaks of the illness from imported cases rather than it re-establishing itself in the U.S.
Lapsing vaccination rates are partly to blame for this large measles outbreak, which has spread to more than 70 people. A recent Kaiser Permanente study published in Pediatrics found five areas of significant clusters of undervaccinated children, where the underimmunization rate ranged from 18 percent to 23 percent. This is significant because according to the CDC, the majority of people who get measles are unvaccinated and "measles can spread when it reaches a community in the U.S. where groups of people are unvaccinated."