Just for a change

A bit of good news from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Perhaps not a major story, but still something worth noting as an example of what's possible when resources and time are actually devoted to a humane cause.

U.S. health officials on Monday officially declared rubella eliminated within U.S. borders. ...

Officials hailed the announcement as a major achievement of immunization programs that drastically decreased the number of rubella cases after a rubella vaccine was introduced in 1969.

Rubella, also called German measles, is not a major killer - but if a pregnant woman is infected during her first trimester there is an up to 85% chance of passing it on to the fetus, which could result in severe side effects in a newborn, including deafness, cataracts, heart defects, and mental retardation. In the years shortly before the introduction of the vaccine, nearly 3,000 infants died yearly of congenital rubella.

The U.S. saw about 1,000 rubella cases in 1982 but saw just nine in 2004, all in women who had contracted the virus in foreign countries before entering the country. The U.S. has not reported a homegrown case of rubella since 2000, according to the agency.

However, because there is still a risk of contracting rubella elsewhere - there were 1,600 cases reported in the Western Hemisphere in 2004 - no changes in immunization practices were proposed.

Footnote: Despite the name connection, rubella and measles are not related. In fact, measles remains a major killer, with 500,000 people, mostly children, dying of measles in 2003. And that despite having a vaccine for 40 years.