(Nexstar) – Multiple measles outbreaks have already been reported this year. One in Texas It bulged from 6 cases to 48 cases in just one week.
“Due to the highly contagious nature of the disease, there is a high possibility that additional cases will occur in Gaines County and surrounding communities,” the Texas Department of Health Department (DSHS) said Friday.
Most cases in Texas involve children under the age of 17. Texas DSHS said. 13 is hospitalized.
A teenager from Lee County, New Mexico – across the Gaines County, Texas border – was also infected, but the patient was not known to the New Mexico Department of Health, a Texas patient. I said it on Tuesday.
With the update Earlier this month, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had identified a total of four cases in Texas, Georgia, New York and Rhode Island, in Alaska, Georgia, New York and Rhode Island. CDC did not provide patients' age and cases were not counted for each individual condition.
In a bulletin Friday, Texas DHSH said all confirmed cases were “unknown” in cases that have not been vaccinated or their vaccination status. All 14 confirmed cases by the CDC are one of the unvaccinated patients, the agency said.
Experts believe the reason for these recent outbreaks can be followed by a decline in vaccination rates.
“We were killing measles, but we were killing a lot of children,” said Dale Bratzler, dean of the University of Oklahoma's Hudson School of Public Health. kfor.
Amesh Adalja from Johns Hopkins University; Agence France-Presse, The Gaines County region in Texas said it is “the lowest vaccination rate in the state.”
Even vaccination rates of less than about 95% increase the risk of an outbreak. World Health Organization We warn that immunity in the herd is only achieved at that rate.
“You're going to happen when the vaccination population rate starts to fall below 95%,” Bratzler said.
CDC is no longer retained County-level vaccination data In the case of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines, the vaccination rate in the US generally declines among kindergarteners from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 grades to 92.7% in 2023-2024. I'm doing it. As of 2023-2024 grade, most states, There was a fee of less than 95%CDC estimates that Idaho is at its lowest at 79.6%.
Speaking to KFOR, Bratzler said he believes low vaccination rates are related to public vigilance and resistance brought about by misinformation.
“I think there was clearly a political impact on how we have a vision for vaccine efficacy and safety,” Bratzler said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sworn in as secretary to the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, was called repeatedly. Promoting anti-vaccine view. At a Senate hearing earlier this month, he also suggested that the fatal 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa was not actually caused by measles. “Completely manufactured.”
Kennedy had visited Samoa during a trip hosted by Samoa anti-vaccine influencers in the months before the outbreak, the Associated Press reported. Antivaccine advocates who posed for a photo with Kennedy in Samoa claimed later that they received advice from Kennedy's peers on avoiding the MMR vaccine in support of alternative treatments.
Kennedy later claimed that his words had nothing to do with the Samoa vaccine update or the 2019 outbreak, the Associated Press reported.
In the years before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, an estimated 3 million to 4 million Americans were infected per year, of which about 400 to 500 died. That's what the illness was It is considered excluded By 2000, the new outbreaks meant they hadn't traced back to internal incidents, but rather brought them to the country by patients, including US citizens who returned to the country with measles.
Total cases of measles in the US have remained fairly low since then – in general Less than a few hundred each year. Cases surged slightly in 2014 and 2019, and again rose in 2024 when 285 cases were confirmed.
On the other hand, measles remains highly contagious. Cases can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes and then touches an infected surface containing secretions from the infected person.
“You can get measles just by being in a room with someone with measles. This can happen even up to two hours after that person leaves.” CDC writes.
Of course, the best way to avoid sending is to get vaccinated, according to the CDC. World Health Organization And most infectious disease experts.
“The best way to prevent illness is to get vaccinated with two doses of measles, which are primarily administered as a combination of measles-Munz-Rubella vaccines,” reads Texas DHSH's bulletin Friday. “Two doses of the MMR vaccine are extremely effective in preventing measles.”
