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"It's terrifying," said his mother, Sara Blum. "You see it and you're like, OK, it's really high."
Then a rash covered him from head to toe.
"It was on his face, on his neck, it was really red and spotted," said Blum, who lives in California. "It was very alarming."
The diagnosis: measles.
Like 92 other children with measles in the United States this year, Walter was too young to be vaccinated against the highly contagious and vaccine-preventable virus.
Like all babies, he relied on the rest of society to vaccinate.
"It's really sad, but our community has somehow let us down," Blum said.
During a phone conversation with reporters on Monday, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emphasized this point. "When you get vaccinated, you protect the people around you who are at risk of complications."
The CDC said Monday that there had been 704 cases of measles in the country this year as of Friday.
Seventy-one percent (503) of US patients this year were unvaccinated, 11% (76) had been vaccinated with at least one of the recommended doses, and 18% (125) had unknown vaccine status. Of those infected this year, 25 were under 6 months, 68 between 6 and 11 months, and 167 between 16 months and 4 years old.
The total number of cases is nine more than the agency reported on Wednesday when it confirmed that the United States had reached the highest number of cases in a single year since the disease had been declared eliminated in the country in 2000. The elimination corresponds to the time of transmission throughout the year of a disease is interrupted, said the CDC.
"We are very concerned about the recent worrying increase in measles," said US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Monday. He noted that the majority of cases involved unvaccinated children.
According to the report, there were 13 measles outbreaks this year, accounting for 663 (94%) of the 704 cases. The CDC defines an epidemic as "a chain of transmission of three or more related cases in time and in space, determined by investigations of local health departments and states."
Six of the homes were "very unified and under-immunized religious or cultural communities". This includes the 474 cases reported by New York City and New York State, which represent 67% of all cases this year.
The New York epidemic began in October and is now the longest and largest in the United States since 2000. In total, more than 600 cases have been reported since October, mostly in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. It all started when an unvaccinated child went to Israel, was infected, and then transmitted the disease to other people, according to health officials in New York.
"The longer it lasts, the more likely it is to get a foothold," said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She added that these communities have been targeted by misinformation that has spread.
Five cases of measles were imported into the United States this year by Israel, which is one of the countries from which the 44 cases directly imported into that country come in 2019. The others are: Philippines (14 cases ), Ukraine (8), Thailand (3), Vietnam (2), Germany (2), Algeria (1), France (1), India (1), Lithuania (1). Russia (1) and United Kingdom (1), according to the CDC. Four other travelers visited more than one country during the period when they would have been exposed to the virus. According to Messonnier, 88% of travelers who brought measles to the United States after their trip were unvaccinated and all were old enough to do so.
"An estimated 7 million cases of measles are reported each year worldwide, and since 2016, the incidence of measles has increased in five of the six regions of the World Health Organization, contributing to at the current risk of importing measles into the United States, "says the report. Protection against the disease resulting from a vaccination rate of more than 91% in children aged 19 to 35 months is threatened by unvaccinated and under-vaccinated communities, the report warned.
The CDC recommends two doses of MMR vaccine, measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, to protect against the disease. The first dose should be administered between 12 and 15 months and a second dose between 4 and 6 years, although it may be given as early as 28 days after the first dose. It is recommended that children aged 6 to 11 months receive the vaccine before traveling abroad and receive the other two recommended doses, as the first dose may not provide long-lasting protection. This practice is also recommended in communities where outbreaks occur. It is also recommended that anyone who does not know his vaccination status be vaccinated before his international trip.
The hallmarks of measles are red rashes and high fever. Although the disease is thought to be just a rash and a passing fever, complications can include encephalitis, swelling of the brain, pneumonia and death.
Of the 2019 cases in the United States, 66 patients (9%) were hospitalized and 24 (3%) had pneumonia, according to the report. No cases of encephalitis or death have been reported in the United States this year. The last measles death in the United States occurred in 2015.
According to the CDC, one or two in every 1,000 people infected in the United States will die from measles.
Even without complications, measles is expensive. According to Messonnier, the average cost per case of measles in the United States is $ 32,000, not counting the costs to the community and family, such as time lost at work.
Walter Blum has recovered from his case of measles. Her mother hopes that other parents will see the photos of her sick baby and will be motivated to vaccinate their children.
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