For Immediate Release:

April 14, 2008

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed that a young child has been diagnosed with measles. Currently there is no identified source of the disease and the investigation is ongoing. The child was not vaccinated against measles.

"At this time, we have not identified any additional cases, but we are continuing to investigate as we try to determine where and how this patient contracted the disease. We are alerting doctors to be on alert for any patients that might have symptoms associated with measles. What we do know is that the patient was not vaccinated against this highly preventable disease," said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Director of Public Health and County Health Officer. "This is the first childhood case of measles in LA County since 2006. The child with measles in that year was not vaccinated and acquired the disease during foreign travel."

Public Health would like to remind parents how important childhood immunizations are to everyone's health. Because of vaccines, there are very few cases of measles in the United States today.

Importance of Vaccine: "Vaccines are important for protecting a childs health, from the time they are born, through adolescence and into adulthood," said Dr. Fielding. "As we recently saw in the San Diego measles outbreak, the decision not to vaccinate ones child puts that child and other children at risk of contracting a disease that could be dangerous or deadly."

Vaccines save lives. Before vaccines were developed and widely used, thousands of U.S. infants and children died or were seriously disabled from diseases such as polio, whooping cough, and measles.

Children who are not protected against vaccine- preventable diseases and who become ill from these diseases could easily spread the illness throughout a community, leading to serious outbreaks. This is especially dangerous for children who have not yet received vaccine because they are too young to be immunized.

Children should receive their immunizations on time at the recommended intervals in order to ensure that they achieve protection against vaccine-preventable diseases at the earliest possible point in time.

Based on the San Diego measles outbreak in non-immunized children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the following guidelines to health care providers that we have repeated in our alert to local physicians:

Consider a diagnosis of measles in persons ill with rash and fever who recently traveled overseas;

Use appropriate infection control practices to prevent transmission in health care settings;

Maintain high coverage with measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine among children.

Children should get 2 doses of the MMR vaccine: the first at 12-15 months of age and the second at 4-6 years of age. Adults who were born after 1956 and who have never had measles should also get the MMR vaccine.

A Note About Vaccine Safety: Recent media attention regarding vaccines and questions of a possible link to autism have focused on a mercury- containing preservative called thimerosal. However,

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and other leading medical study groups, thimerosal has never been proven to cause any harm.

None of the vaccines recommended for children age 6 and under, except for certain doses of inactivated influenza vaccine, contain thimerosal, and have not since 1999. In the state of California, thimerosal-free vaccine must be used in children under the age of three. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, along with several other vaccines, has never contained thimerosal.

Currently available childhood vaccines have an excellent safety record. There is no scientific data to link vaccines to such serious conditions such as autism.

Parents concerned about vaccine safety should speak to their child's health care provider.

The Department of Public Health is committed to protecting and improving the health of the nearly 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. Through a variety of programs, community partnerships and services, Public Health oversees environmental health, disease control, and community and family health. Public Health comprises more than 4,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $750 million. To learn more about Public Health and the work we do, please visit http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health |

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