13. Rubella, an infectious rash responsible for pregnancy complications and infant mortality, still affects hundreds of thousands of mothers each year despite being eliminated in the Americas
Rubella, also known as German measles, is caused by the highly infectious rubella virus. With symptoms not emerging until weeks after exposure, an itchy rash spreads throughout the body in conjunction with joint pain, nerve inflammation. In extreme cases, particularly during pregnancy, the condition can prove fatal to both mother and fetus. Spreading through the air, infected carriers are most contagious prior to symptoms emerging, making tracking rubella immensely difficult, whilst infected infants remain capable of spreading rubella for more than a year after transmission. Originally thought to be measles or scarlet fever, it was not until the mid-19th century that rubella was identified as a unique illness.
Following a pandemic outbreak of rubella in the United States during the 1960s, with more than 12.5 million cases of rubella in the U.S. alone in 1964 and 1965, resulting in more than 11,000 miscarriages and thousands of infant deaths, an effort to discover a vaccine became urgent. Succeeding, by 2006 it was estimated that cases of rubella in the Americas had reached fewer than 3000 per year. However, despite the eradication of the infection in the Americas, rubella remains at large in south-east Asia and Africa, with more than 110,000 afflicted babies born each year from mothers suffering from rubella.