The United States has eliminated measles and rubella but the authorities recommend strengthening partnerships with the WHO and all countries to fight against this threat.
This is good news, but the fight should not be stopped. This is in essence what explains the American Center for Disease Control (CDC), after the publication of un report in the newspaper JAMA Pediatrics demonstrating the elimination of measles and rubella in the United States.
Elimination does not in fact mean total eradication of the disease. As we wrote on Friday, December 6, in the case of illnesses, “Elimination” does not mean that there are no more cases declared. A few infections continue to emerge abroad – where an average of 430 children die every day from measles and rubella – and are transmitted domestically. In medicine, we speak of elimination when no continuous chain of transmission takes place for a year or more.
Before the vaccine, 500 deaths per year in the United States
In the United States, between 2001 and 2011, the incidence of measles remained under one case per 1 million inhabitants. The fight against rubella has been shown to be even more effective: the incidence has been stable at one case per 10 million people for ten years. And the vast majority of cases are of international origin or linked to importation. Between 2001 and 2011, the average number of cases in the United States was 61 per year, according to MedPage. But this figure must be compared to the scourge that affected the country before the vaccine was introduced in 1963: at the time, measles and rubella were frequent, causing between 450 and 500 deaths per year, 48,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000. cases of permanent brain or hearing damage, according to the CDC.
Strengthen partnerships between all countries of the world
“Elimination … is not eradication, and as long as there are cases of measles and rubella in the world, then the threat will continue to exist,” said Tom Frieden, the CDC director, noting that 52 different imported cases of the disease have been identified this year, half of which are from Europe. Due to the global nature of the threat, the CDC director explains that partnerships with the World Health Organization and with all countries of the world should be strengthened in order to better manage the danger. To tackle the problem, he said, it would be necessary to establish networks of laboratories responsible for detecting diseases, emergency operation centers to quickly contain the threat and increase vaccination. Measures which are impossible to put in place in several developing countries.
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