They say everything old is new again. Here are a few outdated bacteria and viruses looking to trend again as vaccination rates fall.
Measles is in the air! That is to say that this highly infectious airborne virus has been spotted in a handful of states, at Los Angeles International Airport and, in particular, west Texas and neighboring New Mexico. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, measles cases led to approximately 48,000 hospitalizations and 400-500 deaths per year. But thanks to the vaccine, measles went the way of the pillbox hat and was declared eliminated in the year 2000. Twenty-five years later, more than 100 people have been infected in the U.S. and one child has died. Fashion fail.
The 1920s were roaring — with diphtheria bacteria. Infecting the offspring of the rich and poor alike, diphtheria was commonly known as the children’s disease. But the development of a vaccine sent this terrible illness out the window faster than speakeasy patrons on the run from the cops. The last known case of diphtheria in the United States was in 1997, but like the flapper dress, it could be back in style again one day soon. That’s not the cat’s pajamas.
The glamorous looks of the early 1900s are rarely seen today, and neither is pertussis, thanks to whooping cough vaccines. First developed in 1914, pertussis vaccines went through years of refinement before eventually reducing the number of cases by 97% between 1922 and 2022. If pertussis returns, dig into Grandma’s closet and snag a lacy vintage handkerchief for coughing up blood.
This long and lean bacterium is a tall drink of water, but you won’t be drinking anything if you catch tetanus, better known as lockjaw. Dapper outfits and lockjaw were both a lot more common in the early 20th century, but the advent of the tetanus vaccine caused cases to decline by 95% and deaths to decline by more than 99%. If you step on a rusty nail, be sure to foxtrot your snazzy oxfords to the doctor for a booster shot.
Peace, love and freedom from the rubella virus — a.k.a. the German measles — finally arrived in 1969 when a rubella vaccine first came onto the scene. Just a few years earlier, a major rubella outbreak infected 12.5 million people (about twice the population of Arizona): 11,000 women lost their pregnancies, 2,100 newborns died and 20,000 babies were born with possible birth defects due to congenital rubella syndrome. Combined since 1971 with measles and mumps shots, the groovy vaccine means rubella is no longer endemic in the United States. Far out.
Poodle skirts, cat’s eye glasses, and iron lungs were all the rage the last time this roly-poly virus rocked around the clock. The advent of the polio vaccine decreased cases from a high in 1952 of about 20,000 cases of paralytic poliomyelitis, with 3,145 deaths, to 0 cases of wild polio since 1979. Why don’t we keep polio in the past and bring back the Hula-Hoop craze instead?
Kathryn Baecht teaches English as a second language in Austin, Texas. Erin McReynolds is a writer and cartoonist in Austin.