Source: Malone.news
Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 due to a lack of continuous disease spread for more than 12 months (CDC). This was considered an outstanding achievement, and the CDC credited a highly effective vaccination program, with improved measles control in the Americas region. The truth is that almost as soon as measles was “eliminated” from the USA, once again outbreaks began to occur.
Measles will most likely never be eradicated or eliminated in the USA or worldwide, even though it fits the criteria for a disease that theoretically could be eliminated. Scientists and public health agencies like to tout that the measles virus is relatively stable, animal reservoirs are not considered to exist (although debatable, as some primates have a significant minority of animals with antibodies against measles), and it is relatively easy to diagnose. Unfortunately, eliminating the measles virus globally is not as simple as it seems.
Measles is a highly infectious disease. Therefore, in order to achieve herd immunity by dosing with the currently available leaky vaccines, it is estimated that there would need to be 95% vaccine coverage worldwide; currently, low-income countries have about 68% of their population vaccinated.
The MMR vaccine is officially said to have a failure rate of around 5% among vaccinated individuals. While this may seem like a small percentage, it translates to roughly 3 million children aged 1-17 in the USA who are presumed to be protected but are probably not. Like many diseases, a mild case of measles after vaccination can be asymptomatic, which means individuals can spread the disease without knowing that they are infected (PubMed).
There is documented evidence that the MMR vaccine has a much higher failure rate than stated above, and that would mean many more children are not protected than previously thought.
Millions of people travel in and out of the U.S. yearly, so the USA will continue to experience more outbreaks, as the rate of measles infections in low-income countries is much higher. Due to regional variations in vaccine acceptance and the fact that there are concentrated locations where international travelers land, including due to the influx of economic migrants from regions where measles is endemic, these outbreaks will most likely be concentrated in specific areas. The chart below demonstrates that this has happened with the latest outbreak….