Category: rubella

Looking Ahead to a Measles and Rubella Free World

Robert Linkins, MPH, PhD

Vaccines fight diseases and save lives. Think of achievements like smallpox eradication, a polio-free world close at hand, and 2-3 million deaths prevented each year through routine immunizations. Yet despite a safe and effective vaccine against measles and rubella, these deadly viruses continue to steal the health and lives of children all over the world. Read More >

Posted on by Robert Linkins, MPH, PhD1 Comment
Categories Archive, measles, rubella, Uncategorized

Global Immunization: 50 Years of Work, Humanity, and Success

With her head tilted back, the picture depicts a young Nigerian girl, as she was holding her mouth wide open in order to receive her dose of orally-administered polio vaccine. This activity was taking place during Nigeria’s National - Stop Transmission of Polio Program (N-STOP), which is a refined and specialized offspring of two larger programs that train disease detectives: the (international) STOP program, and the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program. N-STOP is a key element in Nigeria’s effort to rid the country of this crippling disease.

This blog was originally posted on MyAJC.com on April 26, 2016. Government is a creature of numbers and statistics, a generator of such vast quantities of data and reports that it’s hard to appreciate sometimes the full human dimension of what it takes to protect everyone from vaccine-preventable diseases. That reality comes to mind as Read More >

Posted on by Rebecca Martin, PhD, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Global Health3 Comments
Categories Archive, child health, immunization, measles, polio, rubella, women's/maternal health
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Working Towards an Achievable Goal: A World without CRS

When I started focusing on rubella in 1994, it was mainly recognized as a significant public health problem in high-income countries. When the public health community realized that rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) were actually significant public health issues in the entire region of the Americas, things took a turn and an elimination goal Read More >

Posted on by Susan Reef, MD, Rubella Team Lead, Global Immunization Division
Categories Archive, immunization, infectious disease, rubella
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Stopping rubella in its tracks: CDC works with countries to introduce rubella vaccine

Cambodian children show off their purple marked pinkies, showing that they are protected from measles and rubella, during an immunization campaign in 2013. (Photo courtesy of Sue Chu, CDC.)

    Pop quiz: What vaccine-preventable disease, whose name means “little red”, can cause severe birth defects if pregnant women become infected? If you answered rubella, also known as German measles, you are right. It’s okay if you didn’t know, since rubella is mostly a distant memory in the United States thanks to a comprehensive Read More >

Posted on by Susan Reef, MD and Gavin Grant, MD, CDC Global Immunization Division
Categories Archive, immunization, infectious disease, rubella