Texas measles outbreak expected to last for months, though vaccinations are up from last year

[Eugene]

Earlier DU thread: Global Measles Laboratory is 'under severe threat of collapse' as US pulls funding

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Source: Associated Press

Texas measles outbreak expected to last for months, though vaccinations are up from last year

By DEVI SHASTRI and KASTURI PANANJADY
Updated 6:54 PM EDT, March 21, 2025

As measles cases in West Texas are still on the rise two months after the outbreak began, local public health officials say they expect the virus to keep spreading for at least several more months and that the official case number is likely an undercount.

But there’s a silver lining, officials say: More people have received a measles, mumps and rubella vaccination this year in Texas and New Mexico, which also has an outbreak, compared to last year — even if it’s not as high as they would like. And pharmacies across the U.S., especially in Texas, are seeing more demand for MMR shots.

As of Friday, the outbreak in Texas was up to 309 cases and one measles-related death, while New Mexico’s case count was up to 42 and also one measles-related death. Forty-two people have been hospitalized across the two states.

Texas’ outbreak, which has largely spread in undervaccinated Mennonite communities, could last a year based on studies of how measles previously spread in Amish communities in the U.S. Those studies showed outbreaks lasted six to seven months, said Katherine Wells, director of the public health department in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock’s hospitals have treated most of the outbreak’s patients and the public health department is closely assisting with the response.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/measles-texas-new-mexico-outbreak-mmr-vaccine-6cfda9a944084c390bc70f0e7a37a426

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I'm about half way through a

book called "Booster Shots" by Adam Ratner, MD. It covers the history of measles most specifically, but is also about vaccines and vaccination. One chapter is titled "Crowded, Poor, Malnourished" which are the conditions which render it most deadly. People with measles are contagious for something like two weeks before they show any symptoms, at which point they are essentially no longer contagious. It helps somewhat that a person who recovers from measles is forever immune.

Another point the book makes is that when a disease like measles goes from being something everyone gets in childhood to one no one in your community has gotten in many decades, so that even most doctors have no longer seen it, then when it does pop up, even the doctors can be slow at correctly diagnosing it.
Measles are uniquely suited to humans and will forever be with us. Although mass vaccinations can keep it at bay.