Childhood immunizations in the United States
Mumps is a contagious disease caused by the virus by the same name. Since most people in the United States have been vaccinated, mumps is now a rare disease in this country. Currently there are no specific treatments for mumps.
Mumps is spread person to person by droplets of saliva or mucus from the mouth, nose or throat of an infected person. This is done through coughing, sneezing, talking, and coming into contact with contaminate items. Transmission likely occurs before the salivary glands swell an up to 5 days after the swelling begins.
Measles
Estimates based on modern molecular biology place the emergence of measles as a human disease sometime after 500 AD (the former speculation that the Antonine Plague of 165–180 AD was caused by measles is now discounted). The first systematic description of measles, and its distinction from smallpox and chickenpox, is credited to the Persian physician Rhazes (860–932), who published "The Book of Smallpox and Measles". Given what is now known about the evolution of measles, Rhazes' account is remarkably timely, as recent work that examined the mutation rate of the virus indicates the measles virus emerged from rinderpest (cattle plague) as a zoonotic disease between 1100 and 1200 AD, a period that may have been preceded by limited outbreaks involving a virus not yet fully acclimated to humans. This agrees with the observation that measles requires a susceptible population of >500,000 to sustain an epidemic, a situation that occurred in historic times following the growth of medieval European cities.
Measles is an endemic disease, meaning it has been continually present in a community, and many people develop resistance. In populations not exposed to measles, exposure to the new disease can be devastating. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of those natives who had previously survived smallpox. Two years later, measles was responsible for the deaths of half the population of Honduras, and it had ravaged Mexico, Central America, and the Inca civilization.