A Virginia Tech student has been diagnosed with a possible case of measles.

Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski said Tuesday that the student was diagnosed at Schiffert Health Center on Monday. He has been sent home, and all students and faculty in his classes and his residence hall have been notified. The student, who could be the first Tech student to contract the illness on campus "in 40 or 50 years," is vaccinated against measles, Owczarski said.

Before a widespread immunization program for children in 1963, measles affected 3 million to 4 million Americans a year. Now, the number of cases in the United States has fallen to less than 100 annually, though about 30 million cases are reported worldwide each year. While potentially fatal, most people recover from measles within two weeks, unless complications develop, according to medical Web site WebMD.

Blood tests to confirm the initial diagnosis will take a couple of days, Owczarski said. Symptoms of measles -- a respiratory infection caused by a virus -- include skin rash, fever, cough, watery red eyes and a runny nose. Measles is highly contagious and can be spread through sneezing or coughing.

The measles diagnosis comes a month after three Virginia Tech students were diagnosed with the mumps. Mumps vaccination is 95 percent effective while people who are up-to-date on their measles shots are effectively immune 99 percent of the time.

Owczarski said he did not know of any correlation between the mumps and measles diagnoses.