JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A measles outbreak across the nation, including Florida, does not appear to be slowing down. Now, researchers at the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research are speaking out about how the virus resurged and why it continues to spread.
Twenty-five years ago, measles was considered eradicated in the U.S., but so far this year, the Centers for Disease Control said there have been 800 confirmed cases. 11% of those cases were so bad that they required hospitalization.
Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research, Dr. Michael Koren, oversees human clinical trials of new medicines and vaccines. News4JAX sat down with him to talk about the resurgence of the measles virus that was once eradicated in the U.S. due to a vaccine.
“It may have started with somebody from overseas who was unvaccinated and infected with the virus, but it continues because people in the U.S. who were not vaccinated so it spread it to others,” Koren said.
So far this year, the measles outbreak has killed three children who were not vaccinated in the country. According to a CDC map that illustrates child vaccination rates by state, only 88% of children in Florida were vaccinated against measles between the 2023 and 2024 school year.
Koren said many parents may have chosen not to get their child vaccinated because they believed information that suggested the vaccine is linked to autism.
“That link has been thoroughly discredited. There is no link between the vaccine and autism. It’s not true. That was reported years ago by someone who mentioned it and was completely discredited. In fact, the physician who made that statement lost his medical license,” Koren said.
A measles infection primarily spreads the same way as the flu or the common cold. Once the virus is in the system of an unvaccinated person, it attacks the respiratory system and then spreads throughout the body.
Small children and adults with weak immune systems tend to suffer the most from an infection. In some cases, they don’t survive.
So far, all the measles cases in Florida have been reported in South Florida.