“You don’t count your children until the measles has passed.” Dr. Samuel Katz, one of the pioneers of the first measles vaccine in the late 1950s to early 1960s, regularly heard this tragic statement from parents in countries where the measles vaccine was not yet available, because they were so accustomed to losing their children to measles.
I am a pediatrician and preventive medicine physician, and I have anxiously watched measles cases rise worldwide while vaccination rates have dropped since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic due to disruptions in vaccine access and the spread of vaccine misinformation.