A PROVISIONAL TOTAL of 513 confirmed cases of measles was reported from Los Angeles County during 1988. The Los Angeles County cases represent 17.5% of all (2933) cases reported for the United States during this period and an incidence rate of 6.4 cases/100,000 persons—a risk 5.3 times higher than that in the rest of the United States (1.2/100,000).
Of 353 confirmed patients with known ages and onset from May 1 to December 31, 228 (64.6%) were less than 5 years of age. A total of 135 (38.2%) were less than 16 months of age (i.e., too young for routine vaccination), including 87 (24.6%) less than 12 months of age; 93 (26.3%) were 16 months to 4 years of age.
Preventability status was known for 353 (99.4%) of the cases; 150 (42.5%) of these were preventable, and 203 (57.5%) were considered programmatically nonpreventable.
The setting of transmission was known for