According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles was effectively wiped out in the U.S. in 2000. From the CDC website: “The United States was able to eliminate measles because it has a highly effective measles vaccine, a strong vaccination program that achieves high vaccine coverage in children, and a strong public health system for detecting and responding to measles cases and outbreaks.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles was effectively wiped out in the U.S. in 2000. From the CDC website: “The United States was able to eliminate measles because it has a highly effective measles vaccine, a strong vaccination program that achieves high vaccine coverage in children, and a strong public health system for detecting and responding to measles cases and outbreaks.”Yet in 2014 there were 644 cases in the United States, and thus far in 2015 there have been 178 reported cases. 74% of these were related to a much publicized outbreak linked to Disneyland. Today a new case was reported in Oklahoma, which had experienced no reports of measles in 18 years.

Worldwide measles is a serious problem, infecting 20 million people each year and claiming 146,000 lives. According to the CDC, 1 in 4 people in the United States who get measles will be hospitalized; 1 or 2 out of 1,000 will die. The 2015 outbreaks are attributed in large part to parents not having their children immunized. Dr. Gil Chavez, deputy director of California’s Center for Infectious Diseases, noted at a news conference in January during the Disneyland-related outbreak that the park would be “perfectly safe” if you’ve been immunized.

MCNTalk has frequently blogged on the anti-vaccine movement. It’s been specifically noted by multiple international public health experts that the original 1998 study involving eight children which erroneously tied autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine was just that, erroneous. 

And yet parents continue to forego getting their children vaccinated. With a highly contagious disease such as measles there are consequences for opting against vaccinations. People who are unvaccinated for any reason, including those who refuse vaccination, risk not just their own infection, but spreading the disease to others, including those who cannot get vaccinated because they are too young or have certain health conditions.

Sadly, just last month Susan Mendez, education director for immunization services with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, said it could just be a matter of time before measles entered Oklahoma.“It just takes one person traveling into Oklahoma…If you’re not vaccinated, you are taking a risk.”