By RICHARD SKOLNIK
White Rock

When I was growing up, measles wasn’t unusual—it was expected. Nearly every child got it. Parents could only hope their children would recover without complications because there was no vaccine to prevent the disease.

Most people don’t know that measles was never just a rash and a fever. Before vaccination began in 1963, about 400 to 500 Americans died from measles each year, 48,000 were hospitalized, and about 1,000 developed brain swelling that could leave permanent disabilities. In rare cases, measles can also cause a fatal brain disease years after the initial infection.

The United States just recorded its highest number of measles cases since 1991 – a record we never wanted to see. That should concern every parent and grandparent in the United States. A disease we came close to eliminating is spreading across our country once again.

As the New Mexico lead for Grandparents for Vaccines, I urge parents and grandparents to remember that babies who are too young to be vaccinated are especially vulnerable to measles and its potentially devastating complications. Please do not take unimmunized infants into settings experiencing a measles outbreak or where vaccination rates are too low to provide community protection.

My generation feared measles because we lived through it. Since 1971, we have had a safe and highly effective MMR vaccine that has protected generations of children. We should use it so today’s children and grandchildren never have to experience what my generation did.

(Richard Skolnik is the former Director for Health for South Asia at the World Bank. He is the author of Global Health 101, Fourth Edition, and the Instructor for the Yale/Coursera Essentials of Global Health. Richard also taught Global Health at the George Washington University and Yale and was the Executive Director for Harvard of an AIDS treatment program for three countries in Africa.)