A worsening of the measles epidemic has taken root in Texas, disgusting two dozen and in the nine hospital on the western edge of the state, where child vaccination rates have decreased in recent years.
Starting from Tuesday, 22 children and two adults had been infected, all not vaccinated, local health officials said. The epidemic arrives when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a convinced critic of childhood vaccines, has been appointed as the next secretary of the country’s health, making public health experts care that similar increases in preventable diseases will become more frequent .
“There is the feeling that this will be increasingly common,” said dr. Cameron Wolfe, an expert in infectious diseases at Duke University.
The Texas epidemic has so far been limited to the residents of the County of Gaines, which borders on New Mexico and has about 20,000 residents. Last year 82 percent of kindergarten students received measles, parotitis and vaccine against rubella, according to state data. This figure is about 10 percentage points lower than the average vaccination rate in Texas public schools and a lot below the 95 percent federal objective for measles vaccination.
Vaccination rates have decreased nationally since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and now sit under 93 percent. It is estimated that 280,000 kindergartens in the United States do not have the documentation of an MMR vaccine, according to federal data.
Texas public schools require that children have received some vaccines, including MMR shooting, but parents can request an exemption for “reasons of consciousness”, including religious beliefs.
Last year, over 13 percent of K-12 students in the County of Gaines received a vaccine exemption, according to the data of the state health department. This is one of the highest exemption rates in the state.
Lara Anton, spokesman for the Department of Texas state health services, said that the cases had been concentrated in a “more isolated” community in the county, among the people who attend the Church and private schools together. Many of the children are also at school, said Mrs. Anton.
The local health departments have set up clinical clinical vaccinations in Seminole, a city in the center of the County of Gaines known for its large Mennonita community. So far, these have been well frequented, said Mrs. Anton.
The most common side effects of measles – a high fever and a red eruption stained – generally resolve themselves in a few weeks. But serious complications are possible, including pneumonia and swelling of the brain, especially for children under the age of 5.
About one in five people who are not vaccinated who is infected by measles is hospitalized, according to the centers for the control and prevention of diseases. Mrs. Anton said that all nine hospitalized patients were school -age children and that many of them had spent time in the unit of intensive care unit.
“It’s a serious illness,” he said. “We are trying to impress him on the community, that you have to take steps now to protect you.”
State health officials have warned that the cases would probably be displayed in the surrounding communities due to the “highly contagious nature of this disease”.
The New Mexico Department of Health reported this week that a teenager who lived in a county on the border with Texas was positive for measles, although the child had no exposure known to the outbreak of the County Gaines.