Texas is poised to make measles a nationwide epidemic, public health experts say

[douglas9]

Public health experts say Texas needs better messaging on vaccinations and quarantining and more people conducting contact tracing to contain the spread.

With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn’t start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts.

Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has made a resurgence in West Texas communities, jumping hundreds of miles to the northern border of the Panhandle and East Texas, and invading bordering states of New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Based on the rapid spread of cases statewide — more than 200 over 50 days — public health officials predict that it could take Texas a year to contain the spread. With cases continuously rising and the rest of the country’s unvaccinated population at the outbreak’s mercy, Texas must create stricter quarantine requirements, increase the vaccine rate, and improve contact tracing to address this measles epidemic before it becomes a nationwide problem, warn infectious disease experts and officials in other states.

“This demonstrates that this (vaccine exemption) policy puts the community, the county, and surrounding states at risk because of how contagious this disease is,” said Glenn Fennelly, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Texas Tech University. “We are running the risk of threatening global stability.”



https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/21/texas-measles-vaccine-new-mexico-oklahoma-us/

[hlthe2b]

1. Oh, Bobby will get right on that...

How unpleasant it must be to be a competent pediatrician/primary care physician, infectious disease specialist, ER doc, or public health epidemiologist in Texas--especially given the ignorant national mouthpiece who is supposed to support their efforts.

[walkingman]

2. I do not understand the anti-vaccine mentality by so many these days.

And when our so-called leaders push misinformation there should be some accountability for such actions.

[hlthe2b]

5. It is what happens when the RW weaponizes conspiracy theory as they did during COVID-19. Yes, there

had been decades of anti-vax skepticism before then (including among some health-driven but ill-informed liberals) but it was supercharged thereafter and made to be linked specifically to "Liberals' political aims" and supposed "malign" intent. Thus opposing all aspects- claiming the Left intended to harm with those policies-became an overriding tenet of the MAGA movement. How Trump managed to walk that tightrope-given his MAGATs opposed the very vaccine he initially promoted, speaks to the cult-like hold he has on these sadly pathetic people.

[Irish_Dem]

3. The Trump goal is to let disease and illness spread throughout the population.

It is part of the eugenics program.

The old, poor, infirm will die off.

It is survival of the fittest and creation of a super race.

Nazi territory.

[milestogo]

4. thanks, Texas

[GreenWave]

6. Start sending busloads of measles victims to Texas. See how they like it.

[ALBliberal]

7. Me as a Texas native! I am so mad!

This has spread close to Albuquerque to neighboring Los Lunas (posted a few days in NM forum) and my daughter has a newborn and she is advised she can’t get the vaccine until she is 6 months old. My daughter is advised to not let her newborn near anyone with even a sniffle.

Typically she would be making ventures out of her home if there wasn’t this madness.

I truly think she is a bit depressed to be home bound.

And her three year old goes off spring break to preschool next week. That in and of itself is stressful. I believe? They are stringent about shot records. And yet….

But I worry more about the young moms and babies that don’t or can’t stay home with their babies.