Disneyland is suspected of being the location and source of the U.S.’s most recent measles outbreak.

With the decrease in children being immunized, there has been a reoccurrence of cases in recent years, said Bruce Wright, executive director of campus health.

There are no booster vaccinations and individuals can get vaccinated at any age, said Colleen Tarriff associate professor of pharmacotherapy.

“You just need two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine,” said Connie Koal, director of infection prevention and employee health at Pullman Regional Hospital.

Proof of the MMR vaccine is a general requirement for students to register for classes at WSU.

However, with the recent outbreak, the Health and Wellness Center encourages all students and staff to verify their measles immunizations.

Although WSU requires MMR immunizations, it is not a federal requirement.

University of Idaho is one of the institutions that does not require MMR immunizations.

“Greater than 90 percent public institutions have measles requirements,” Wright said.

Like Disneyland, college campuses are public locations which increase the chance of contracting measles.

“College students are in close proximity to one another,” Tariff said. “Measles is very contagious.”

There have been no measles outbreaks in WSU’s history due to the MMR vaccination requirement, Wright said.

“Our data tells us the 97 percent of students have documented immunity to measles,” Wright said.

Wright said the measles are not likely to show on campus. If they do, the process of eliminating the virus from campus can be tedious.

“If we have measles cases here, we have to identify as many as possible who are not immunized. Then they must be excused from campus for at least two weeks,” Wright said.

At one point, the U.S. had almost eradicated measles altogether. Recently, however, it is showing up again.

“There has been more than one hundred cases in the U.S. already this year,” Koal said.

The amount of cases has increased rapidly for the past month in Washington.

“We have had four cases in the state of Washington,” Koal said. “Having this many cases this early is concerning.”

Measles is most commonly an airborne illness, and adults are just as susceptible as children.

“When people think of measles, (they think) it only impacts children and babies,” Tarriff said. But this is not the case, she said.

Koal said symptoms include a rash on the face, and sometimes you get cold like symptoms and fever.

“Some people seem to think that measles are benign, but measles, can in some cases, result in some pretty severe infections, including infections in the brain,” Wright said.

For more information on measles or to get immunized, students can visit the Health and Wellness Center on campus.