Rubella historical perspective

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Aravind Kuchkuntla, M.B.B.S[2]

The clinical picture resembling rubella was described for the first time in 1814 and its role in causing congenital anomalies was identified in 1942. The virus was isolated for the first time in 1962 by two independent groups in tissue culture.

• 1814, George Maton, first recognized that a mild illness characterized by rash, lymphadenopathy, and little or no fever.^[1]
• In 1866, Henry Veale named the disease rubella.^[1]
• In 1942, Norman Gregg reported the birth defects in a pregnant woman infected with rubella in the first trimester.^[1]
• Rubella is also known as German measles because the disease was first described by German physicians in the mid-eighteenth century.^[2]
• In 1962, rubella virus was isolated in tissue culture.^[1]
• In 1972, there was an rubella epidemic in Israel, affecting 11.8 per thousand live births.^[3][4]
• In May 2012, 194 countries at the World Health Assembly adopted the Global Vaccine Action Plan to eliminate measles and rubella in at least five WHO regions by the end of 2020. 53 member states of the WHO region still did not reach the goal for elimination of rubella to date.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}
• Between September 2011 and December 2012, an epidemic of rubella infection occurred in Romania affecting 24,627 people.^[10]

The “rubella umbrella” campaign urged parents to have their children immunized from this viral infection. Rubella, or more commonly referred to as the German measles, is a mild childhood illness that can pose a serious threat to a fetus, if the mother contracts the illness during pregnancy. More than 20,000 babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) during an outbreak of rubella in 1964-65. This epidemic cost the country an estimated $1.5 billion. The rubella vaccine was first licensed in the U.S. in 1969.

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