By Phil Helsel -
NBC News
The country's public health agency warned doctors on Monday about an increase in measles cases, which in just over three months has equaled last year's total number of cases.
As of Thursday, 58 cases of measles had been confirmed in the United States this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), compared to 58 in all of 2023.
A vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR.George Frey/Getty Images file
In this year's cases,
93% of them were related to international travel
, the agency said.
Most of the cases were in children a year or older who had not yet received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine.
“Health care professionals should ensure that children are up to date on routine vaccines, including MMR,” the agency said in a notice to health care providers.
[Florida defies CDC, says unvaccinated measles children can go to school amid outbreak]
Seventeen states have reported cases this year.
According to the CDC website, in New York state, they were registered in the city.
There have also been outbreaks in other countries, such as Austria and the United Kingdom, so everyone of any age traveling to an international destination should be up to date on their vaccinations, the agency said in its advisory.
Measles is very contagious
, and unvaccinated people have a 90% chance of becoming infected if they are exposed to the virus.
There was a large outbreak in Florida late last month, and another in Philadelphia in January.
Measles can also be fatal.
In 2021, about 128,000 people, most of them children, died from this disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
It estimates that between 2000 and 2021, 56 million deaths were avoided worldwide thanks to vaccines.
Measles
was declared an eradicated disease in the United States in 2000
, meaning that there has been no continuous transmission of the disease for more than 12 months or that it is not consistently present in the country, according to the agency.
The United States maintains “eliminated” status for measles, but in 2019 there was a 27-year high of 1,274 cases.
All were related to travel by people who then infected unvaccinated or undervaccinated others in the United States, the CDC explained.