Global health authorities announced on Wednesday that the disease rubella, also known as German Measles has been eliminated from all of North and South America.
Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization made the announcement on behalf of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Foundation.
The Americas region is the first in the world to eliminate rubella, as it was the first to eliminate smallpox in 1971 and polio in 1994.
Rubella is caused by a virus. It is a mild disease in children and adults. But in pregnant women the disease can spread to the fetus causing miscarriage and still birth. Infected fetuses that survive to birth often have serious birth defects. Of the approximately 120,000 cases of the disease worldwide, about 10,000 cases result in birth defects each year. The last confirmed case of rubella in the America’s was in Argentina in 2009.
The elimination of this disease signals the complete success of a fifteen year program of vaccination with the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (MMR) in 45 countries and territories in the Americas.
In 1994 PAHO/WHO set a goal of eliminating rubella by the year 2010. PAHO/WHO funded vaccine procurement in 32 countries which vaccinated 250 million adolescents and adults between 1998 and 2008.
Dr. Maurice Hilleman developed the rubella vaccine that is used today in combination with measles and mumps vaccines also developed by Dr. Hilleman. In 1969 when his young daughter Jeryl Lynn came to him with a sore throat, Dr. Hilleman recognized an oncoming case of mumps. He took a swab from Jeryl Lynn’s throat and began work on a vaccine. In 1971, Dr. Hilleman combined his mumps vaccine with two others he created for rubella and measles. That is the origin of today’s MMR shots.
At the PAHO/WHO meeting in Washington D.C., Dr. Etienne told the New York Times, “with rubella under our belt, we need to roll up our sleeves and finish…measles.”