It’s a nightmare scenario for public health officials: A traveler infected with a highly contagious virus passes through an airport while asymptomatic, unknowingly transmitting the disease to others and sparking a widespread outbreak.

Virginia health officials hope that won’t be the case with a Maryland resident who passed through Washington Dulles International Airport last week before testing positive for measles. But the incident should have sirens flashing and alarms screaming as separate outbreaks of that disease in New Mexico and Texas have killed two people and sickened hundreds more.

Now is the time to make sure children are vaccinated from that virus and have their health records up to date. And now is the time for Virginia to ensure robust communication and solid planning, recognizing the federal government’s retreat from sound science relating to disease control and prevention.

Most Americans fairly view measles as a disease from history, a virus that ravaged previous generations that is now all but eradicated following development of a safe and effective vaccine more than 60 years ago. Cases would pop up from time to time, but they were incredibly rare and swiftly contained.

A new outbreak could well change that. With a vaccine skeptic in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the likelihood of a robust federal response is slim, meaning Virginians should protect themselves, and their children specifically, by ensuring their vaccines are up to date.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles was a legitimately terrifying disease. Between 3 million and 4 million people, usually children under the age of 15, were infected each year, about 48,000 of them were hospitalized and the virus killed about 500-600 people annually.

That changed in 1963 when researchers using the isolated measles virus successfully developed a vaccine for widespread distribution. Typically combined with mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines, or the mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccines, the landmark breakthrough inspired dreams of finally extinguishing measles for good.

That became official U.S. policy in 1978 when the CDC set out to eradicate measles by 1982. Health officials updated their strategy to recommend two doses of the vaccine for all children, and the new approach delivered remarkable progress. By 2000, the United States formally declared measles eliminated as a public threat.

That’s when complacency set in. Americans raised in a world without measles came to take it for granted. They cast doubt on a vaccine program confirmed by countless studies to be safe and which was unquestionably effective.

As skepticism blossomed, vaccination uptake shriveled just enough — either from personal choice, religious adherence or COVID-related disruptions to childhood inoculation schedules — for measles to return.

Already, the United States has recorded the largest number of measles cases in a calendar year since 2019 and, at this rate, 2025 would be the worst year of infections in more than 30 years. The two deaths this year — a 6-year-old in Texas and an adult in New Mexico — are the first measles-related fatalities since 2015.

To now learn of someone infected at Dulles is undeniably concerning. Virginia is fortunate that about 95% of its kindergarteners are fully vaccinated against measles, but health officials would prefer to see those numbers higher to guard against outbreaks.

It was reassuring to see Virginia Department of Health officials encourage anyone at Dulles on March 5 between 4-9 p.m. to monitor for symptoms and contact their health providers for guidance regarding vaccinations.

That stands in contrast to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, who cast doubt on the research behind the measles vaccine in a Fox News interview this month, blamed the measles deaths on poor diet, and recommended snake oil, ahem, cod liver oil as a preventive measure to guard against illness.

The fact is, the measles vaccine successfully eliminated the virus from circulation and its absence allowed for a resurgence. While officials such as Kennedy should be shouting that from the rooftops, this outbreak makes clear that the commonwealth may need to organize our own defenses, grounded in proven science, to protect our communities.

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