Detailing rubella's disappearance

HEALTH & SCIENCE
Detailing rubella's disappearance
Quick View. April 11, 2005.

After a 40-year effort, rubella is no longer endemic in this country.

Late last month, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the transmission of the rubella virus rubella has been interrupted in the United States. This accomplishment is a result of intensive efforts to increase vaccination levels and eliminate the disease both here and throughout the Americas.

Here is how the disease's vanishing act took place:

1962-1965 -- 12.5 million cases in the United States; a worldwide rubella epidemic is taking place.

1969 -- 57,686 U.S. cases; vaccine is licensed with one dose recommended for children.

1976 -- 12,491 U.S. cases

1980 -- 3,904 cases

1989 -- 396 cases; CDC designs plan to eliminate indigenous rubella transmission.

1990 -- 1,125 cases; rubella re-emerges, and recommendations are changed to two vaccine doses.

1991 -- 1,401 cases

1992 -- 160 cases

1995 -- 128 cases; epidemiology of disease changes, and most cases are imported rather than locally acquired.

2001 -- 23 cases

2002 -- 18 cases

2003 -- 7 cases

2004 -- 9 cases; CDC panel concludes that transmission of rubella has been interrupted.

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; AMNews staff research

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