The Zika virus in the news these days reminds us of another microcephaly-causing virus which scourged our world in the not-so-distant past. In the years right before we were born (the late 1960s), the virus rubella routinely swept through the United States and the rest of the world. The airborne germ rubella, just like the Zika virus, caused most people just a mild illness that they usually never even knew that they had. After they were sick, they became immune to the virus. But when pregnant women contracted rubella early in pregnancy, their unborn children sometimes ended up with microcephaly.
Microcephaly is a condition where a small, underdeveloped or abnormal brain leads to a small head at birth. Many children with microcephaly have significant mental disabilities.
So what happened to rubella? It’s the R in the MMR vaccine. We give this vaccine to all children, first at 12 to 15 months, and again at 4 to 6 years of age. We vaccinate girls to protect their unborn fetuses when they are pregnant, and we also vaccinate boys. Although boys will not become pregnant, they can contract the disease and spread it to others who are pregnant. It is standard practice for obstetricians to test all of their pregnant patients for immunity to rubella. If a woman is not immune, she is given the MMR vaccine after delivery to prevent coming down with rubella during future pregnancies.
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