"I think there’s not enough awareness about families bringing in their children for pretravel immunization updates. That’s something that’s really important," Dr. Maldonado said. "If you have children in your practice who are going to be traveling, it would be helpful if you would update the parents about what vaccinations they should be receiving."
The CDC declared that the United States had eliminated endemic measles (which is not quite the same thing as eradication) in 2000, and a recent review found that the elimination has been sustained but "is inherently a fragile state" that requires significant surveillance, investigation, and response to importation-related cases, Dr. Maldonado said.
The report will go to the World Health Organization, which is assessing the global status of measles, she added. "One of the things we found with polio, outside the United States, is that once countries feel that they have eliminated the disease, they kind of ease up on their vaccination practices. We really don’t think that’s advisable with measles because it’s so contagious," she said.
Dr. Maldonado has been a speaker for Merck and Novartis.