Measles in the United States, 2006

Abstract

The control and virtual elimination of measles in the United States is a public health success that has provided a model for immunization programs in other parts of the developed world. Before measles vaccination was introduced in the United States in the mid-1960s, more than half a million cases of measles were reported each year. Once a vaccine was developed, public health officials set out to use it to control the disease, envisioning eventual global eradication. By the mid-1970s, fewer than 50,000 cases were being reported annually in the United States, but a severe outbreak in Los Angeles in 1977 reminded authorities how tenuous the control of measles was. Compulsory immunization of schoolchildren followed — the first in a series of steps that led to the interruption of the transmission of measles in the United States. The most effective of these steps was probably the introduction of a second dose of measles vaccine in 1989, again in response to a large outbreak of disease. At a meeting in March 2000, leaders in the field concluded that “measles is no longer endemic in the U.S.”¹