Little girl with measles.
In less than three weeks, an explosion of measles has been thrown out of two cases among non -vaccinated children in West Texas in 48. Three cases have also been found in a neighboring New Mexico circuit. So far, 13 children have been hospitalized. Preventive vaccine diseases such as measles remain a threat to public health. And with the reluctance of the vaccine in childhood – or simply complete rejection – increasing, the problem is likely to worsen.
The counting of measles issues in Texas and New Mexico is likely to represent part of the true number of infections. Health officials suspect that between 200 and 300 people are infected but unproven. The cases in West Texas appear to trace again to the unjustified members of a Mennonite community.
While the non -vaccinated number across the United States increases along with lower levels of overall herd immunity, we will inevitably see more explosions. At least 20 schools in Texas have vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella vaccines that are lower than 50%. And in 2024, disease control and prevention centers reported that for students entering the vaccination kindergarten for all child vaccines fell below 93%, which is under the threshold of 95% health experts say it is necessary for Prevent explosions.
This raises a much greater discussion about vaccines and getting vaccines. Recently sworn in the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, has expressed criticism of vaccines, citing what he views as possible security issues. During his Senate confirmation session, Kennedy said he was not anti-vaccine. On the contrary, he stated, “I am a pro-security”, as he called to do more studies. Perhaps more worrying has been his false claims of links between the MMR vaccine and autism, which were also discussed during the hearing.
The two -dose MMR vaccine is safe and very effective in preventing the disease. The full series of vaccines is 97% effective to measles, but also one shot provides 93% effectiveness, according to CDC.
If without vaccination, being exposed to the highly contagious measles virus can lead to a person who contracts the disease that causes an initial disease similar to the flu rash that spreads throughout the body. About 20% of non -vaccinated people who receive measles end up in the hospital, the CDC said. One in 20 children who receive it ends with pneumonia, the most common cause of death in infected children.
Patients with measles can also develop ear infections, severe gastrointestinal boredom, pneumonia and swelling of the brain or encephalitis, which occurs in one in 1,000 children who contract measles. This can lead to deafness, convulsions, intellectual disabilities and death. Encephalitis is the one who killed the seven -year -old daughter of author Roald Dahl, Olivia, in 1962. This was before the vaccines arrived.
In 1986, Dahl marked an essay on her death as an appeal to parents everywhere to vaccinate their children. Dahl wrote:
“Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the disease took its usual course, I can remember reading her often in bed and not feeling especially alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the route of recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to modify small animals from color pipe cleaners, and when she came to her to make a, e I noticed that fingers and her mind were not working together and she could do nothing.
“Are you feeling good?” I asked.
“I feel all sleepy,” she said.
In an hour, it was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. “
Before the wide availability of vaccines in the 1960s, measles was the only main killer of young children globally. Even in the US, about 400 to 500 people died of measles each year, while 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 suffered encephalitis.
Measles declared eliminated by the US in 2000, which meant that at that time there was a lack of transmission of the disease for more than 12 months. But this statement turned out to be premature. While the annual number of measles cases in the 2000s was relatively small, they went up to 1,274 cases confirmed in 31 countries in 2019. This was so far the largest number of cases reported in the US since 1992.
Mass vaccination campaigns in many countries around the world have significantly reduced mortality around the globe. Based on the estimates published in the journal LancetThe global number of measles deaths in 2020 was 60,700, a decrease of 94% from 1,072,800 deaths in 2000, and a 98% decrease from 2,600,000 deaths in 1980. However, from 2020 to 2022, fatalities in the whole world more than double, reaching 136,000.
Today, between one and three of every 1,000 children taking measles die from respiratory or neurological complications. Unexpected women who are pregnant may have babies born prematurely or low birth weight, which can cause long -term issues for developing a baby.
And, according to two studies published in 2019 in journals Science AND ImmunologyMeasles can cause more harm than just acute infection. The virus can eliminate acquired immune memory by destroying B memory, plasma and T cells, which in turn make people become much more susceptible to infections.
Measles is not the only vaccine preventable disease that poses a public health threat. Others include polio, mumps, diphtheria, tetanus, good cough and hepatitis B. Exceptions to childhood vaccines as medical (due to contraindications) and non-medical, are now high. And while about 3% of children still have non-medical exceptions for religious or philosophical reasons, the number is now greater than 5% in 10 countries, including Texas. If this continues to grow, we can expect to see more explosions.