The Big Measles Scare of 2018

Ashley Hunter, ECB Publishing, Inc.

It's been hard to miss – practically all over the internet, you might have seen the news articles that displayed the threat of measles and warned that the CDC had advised an “outbreak” in 21 states, including Florida.
The news articles displayed pictures of children with the tell-tale measles rash and skin blotches; the stories amassed fear and had people retweeting, posting and sharing.
But what is the truth in the hastily reported and quickly spread measles scare of 2018?
The history of measles dates all the way back to the year 340, when Chinese alchemist Ko Hung documented the difference in smallpox and measles, and in 910, Persian Physician Rhazes identified the differences between the two diseases.
From then on, history bears the mark of measles, which was mostly spread by European explorers as they traveled into the 'New Worlds' around the globe.
The native peoples of these New World civilizations had no natural immunity to the diseases carried by these explorers, and the devastation of measles, smallpox, whooping cough, chicken pox and typhus began.
A look through history shows why measles has a feared reputation even today: In 1824, Hawaiian King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu traveled to London and contracted measles, ultimately dying within a month; and in 1875, British sailors brought measles to Fiji, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Fiji natives.
It wasn't until 1963 that the first measles vaccine was licensed, and improved nutrition assisted in slowly making measles an illness of the past.
But even with the vaccine, measles continue to exist in some form or another – even though measles were declared “effectively eliminated” in the United States by 2000.
In 2014, only 14 years after the measles had, supposedly, been “eliminated”, more than 600 (a total of 667) measles cases were reported, mostly due in part to two outbreaks of the illness.
The 2014 Measles Outbreak could be traced to an Amish community in Ohio that had contracted the illness from a visiting missionary from the Philippines, which had been experiencing a large measles outbreak at the time; and an outbreak that was traced back to California's Disneyland in December of 2014.
After the 667 reported cases of measles in 2014, measles outbreaks saw another decline, with only 188 cases being reported in 2015, 86 in 2016, and 118 in 2017.
But earlier this year, panic renewed as various credited news sources warned that 21 states were experiencing a “measles outbreak”.
Residents of those states, which included Florida, began to panic and the story spread as quickly as the measles themselves, finally prompting the CDC to make a statement.
“There is NO current multi-state #measles outbreak in US. Some recent media reports misinterpreted CDC data. Number of US-reported cases in 2018 is similar to recent years & in expected range. Measles is still common in many parts of the world. Protect your family w/ #MMR vaccine,” wrote the CDC on their Twitter account (@CDCgov) on Thursday, August 16.
According to the news sources, 107 cases of measles had been reported throughout the year, along with multiple outbreaks.
But according to the CDC, an “outbreak” is only when three or more people fall ill at the same time and the cause is confirmed as measles; only eight actual outbreaks have been reported throughout the year.
The CDC advises that the current measles number is similar to recent years and not truly a cause for panic on its own, and overseas traveling can be a direct contributor to the increase of measles cases within the United States.
Even though measles is being fiercely combated within the U.S., the illness is still common in many parts of the world, such as Asia, Europe, the Pacific, and Africa.
So while there have been 107 confirmed cases of measles this year, some of those cases taking place in Florida, those 107 people were not a part of a massive outbreak throughout the United States, and many of those cases were the result of out-of-country (or into-country) travel.
Measles symptoms generally appear about 7-14 days after a person is infected and can be identified through a high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes.
Three or five days after the initial symptoms appear, a rash will break out in the form of red, flat spots. During the appearance of the rash, a person's fever can spike to more than 104 F.
Measles can be highly contagious; it can be spread through coughing and sneezing. The measles virus can live for up to two hours in an airspace where an infected person coughed or sneezed.