Disneyland Measles Outbreak Linked to Low Vaccination Rate

Measles have been spreading in the United States since December with most patients reporting that they contacted the disease after going to Disneyland in Orange County. Named as Disneyland measles, the disease has infected at most 133 patients as of Friday, NPR reports.

Experts said that the spread of the infection is largely caused by the low vaccination rate which should be raised between 96-99% to reach 'herd immunity according to reports from LA Times.

However, it was found out that only 50%-86% of the population has availed of the vaccine when the outbreak is at its peak.

"This preliminary analysis indicates that substandard vaccination compliance is likely to blame for the 2015 measles outbreak,"Maimuna Majumder, research fellow in the Health Map Computational Epidemiology Group at Boston Children's Hospital said in a statement released originally by Jama Pediatrics.

Previously, the US government has declared to have to completely eradicate measles from the country in the year 2000 with its widespread vaccination. However, the cases of measles have increased in the last two years raising public concerns as to whether the vaccination has been properly implemented.

"Measles is one of those cases of how herd immunity is really for the common good," Majumder further said in an interview.

She further assured the public that it is not a deadly disease and kids just need to have a strong immune system to fight the disease.

"Healthy kids don't die from it," she said.

According to Scientific America, measles is a very contagious disease. And according to LA Times, without the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), measles has been found to be transmitted from one person at Disneyland to 145 people in the U.S. It has also infected a dozen others in Mexico and Canada.

Common symptoms of this disease include high fever, cough and runny nose. Other symptoms like the presence of red rashes that may start in the face that will later spread in other parts of the body in the later stage of the disease.