As thousands of people flooded through the doors of the Cobo Center to attend the annual North American International Auto show, a few unexpected guests may have been spreading among them: rubella and measles.

“Rubella is just known as German measles… it’s kind of like a lighter type of measles. The bumps are not as bright red but they’re itchy so it falls in that same category,” said microbiology teacher Matt Huhta. “The rubella is caused by a virus, [the] same thing with measles, so they’re both viral. In terms of them being contagious, though, they are both spread through the air via coughs by people who are infected [and] are both equally contagious.”

Cases of measles and rubella had been eradicated about 20 years ago, but have started to reemerge.

“A lot of [the outbreak] is due to vaccination rates,” continued Huhta. “That kind of goes back to ‘herd immunity,’ which I think is really important to talk about. Let’s say that you have high herd immunity: if 90% of the population is vaccinated, the people who are not vaccinated in ‘the herd’ are still considered to be safe because the people who are vaccinated are not spreading the disease. Different states have different vaccination rates… if the herd immunity goes down, people who are not vaccinated are more susceptible to getting the disease.”

According to Dr. Prameela Patel, a family physician at the Silver Pine Medical Group in Sterling Heights, the spread of the measles and rubella can not only be linked to low herd immunity, but also dropping immunization rates with the MMR vaccine.

“Not in my medical school years, not in my training, and not in my practice years have I ever seen anything like this… these outbreaks are happening because we have less herd immunity, so there are fewer people who have immunity to it because we are not doing as well with immunizing most people. People who don’t have immunity to the measles virus are catching the virus before they recognize they even have measles,” said Dr. Patel. “So people who don’t have immunity to it are continuing to catch it and spread it. I think the bigger issue is that we’re not doing as well with our immunization program and encouraging our parents and families to get their kids immunized. I think that’s probably the biggest reason we’re having these outbreaks.”

Since the disease is viral, there are not antibiotic treatments. Protection from the disease, as Huhta explained, comes from a young age with the MMR vaccine. Over recent years, however, there has been a discussion of the safety behind the MMR vaccine itself, the vaccine causing fears of the development of autism in those who receive the vaccine.

“There have been no studies that have shown the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. There were some reports that there was a possible link but those have been debunked now. We know from a lot of good scientific evidence that there is no causal link between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism in a child,” said Dr. Patel.

For those that did attend the auto show, Dr. Patel encourages those exposed to the virus to check in with physicians.

“The first thing is that if you are concerned you may have been in contact with someone who has had measles is to make sure that you have been immunized. Most of us who have been immunized, even if we’ve only gotten one immunization, have about a 93% protection against measles,” said Dr. Patel. “If we’re concerned that we did get the full immunization series, we can actually get the antibodies checked to determine if we have immunity to measles. If there is a fear that you’ve been exposed you can follow up with your physician and let them know your concerns.”