1 Surveillance, Investigations, and Research Branch, Division of Immunization Center for Prevention Services, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA 30333
2 Division of Immunization Center for Prevention Services
In Reply.
The effort to control and eliminate measles in the United States has had tremendous success, as mentioned by Dr Levy. The reported cases in 1983 represented a 99.7% reduction from the annual average of 525,000 in the 10 years preceding vaccine licensure. Although the 69.3% increase from 1983 to 1984 might seem alarming, the provisional total of 2,534 reported cases still represents less than 0.5% of the cases reported annually during the prevaccine era.