National public health officials said an ongoing measles outbreak in Romania has infected more than 3,400 people and killed at least 17 despite an aggressive nationwide vaccination campaign.
Massive measles outbreak in Romania: A warning to US?
I’m sure that any antivaccinationists who read this will point immediately to the phrase “despite an aggressive nationwide vaccination campaign,” as though the outbreak isn’t being stopped by increased vaccination. Of course, this line of argument fails to take into account that, once there are outbreaks, authorities are going to be playing catch-up, and it will take a while for increased vaccination rates to slow and stop the fury of the outbreak.
More importantly, children are dying, and they’re dying at roughly the rate we know from history to expect in developed countries. Normally, according to the CDC, the mortality rate from measles is typically quoted as 0.2% in the US but can be as high as 10% in areas with high levels of malnutrition. When measles is rare, as it fortunately still is in the US (for now, anyway), deaths are unlikely or likely only to be one, because you have to have thousands of cases before significant numbers of children die of the disease. Unfortunately, Romania has reached that level. So, right there, the case of Romania puts the lie to the claim that measles isn’t a dangerous disease.
