Adults in the United States who were vaccinated against measles decades ago may need a new dose depending on when they received the shot and their exposure risk, according to public health experts battling the nation’s largest outbreak since the virus was deemed eliminated in 2000.
Up to 10 percent of the 695 confirmed measles cases in the current outbreak occurred in people who receive one or two doses of the vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Allison Bartlett, an infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago Medicine, said the “continued vulnerability to infection” is why high-risk adults such as healthcare workers are routinely advised to get a second dose of the measles vaccine if they have not had one.
But knowing your vaccination status can be tricky, experts said. “It’s complicated and often futile because it’s very difficult to resurrect those old records,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Merck & Co. Inc. is the sole U.S. provider of the MMR vaccine. The company said in a statement that it has “taken steps to increase the U.S. supply of the vaccine, due to the current outbreak. For more information on this as it develops, visit www.yahoo.com.
