Last year roughly 250,000 people came down with measles; more than half of them died.
Currently the Philippines is experiencing a major measles outbreak that sickened 57,000 people in 2014. China had twice that many cases, although they were more geographically spread out. Major outbreaks were also recorded in Angola, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Measles causes an intense fever, coughing, watery eyes and a signature full-body rash. The disease is rarely fatal in developed nations with modern health care systems but can cause brain damage and permanent hearing loss.
Once the virus starts spreading among kids who haven't been immunized, it's very difficult to stop.
"The measles virus is probably the most contagious infectious disease known to mankind," says
Stephen Cochi, a senior adviser with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global immunization division.
Cochi's team tracks flare-ups of measles around the world. He says the current outbreak in the Philippines was sparked by Typhoon Haiyan, which battered the island nation late in 2013, killing more than 6,000 and hampering vaccination efforts. Cases started to multiply first in the storm-ravaged parts of the country.
Some of the people who've caught measles in the current Southern California outbreak have the same strain of the virus that's circulating in the Philippines.
Cochi adds that someone infected with measles may be contagious for 24 to 48 hours before feeling sick. So a returning traveler could spread the disease and not even know it.
"The children under 5 are very vulnerable to measles," Robinson says. They're the primary target of vaccination campaigns. "It takes just a few days to get them vaccinated but it also takes a very short time for the virus to kill them."
Prior to the widespread use of measles vaccines in the 1980s, there were more than 4 million cases around the globe every year. That number has been cut significantly to roughly a quarter of a million. But measles is still out there, and as Cochi at the CDC points out, the virus is just a plane ride away from the United States.
Measles Is A Killer: It Took 145,000 Lives Worldwide Last Year : Goats and Soda : NPR