TEXAS – February 19, 2025 – A recent outbreak of the measles has struck Texas with at least 146 infected people, including 20 hospitalizations and 1 death since late January. The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported the death as an unvaccinated school-aged patient. Most of the cases were children. Only 5 of the cases occurred in people who were vaccinated against measles. As of February 25th, neighbor state New Mexico reported an outbreak of 9 cases near the Texas border. A total of 164 cases in the U.S. have been reported since February 27. An overwhelming majority was unvaccinated people and 3% were from people who only received 1 shot of the 2 shot recommended vaccine regimen.
Measles is a very contagious viral infection. The virus may be airborne following sneezing, coughing, walking and just breathing. Airborne droplets with the virus can remain in the air for up to 2 hours after an infected person leaves an area. Breathing the contaminated air and touching contaminated surfaces may cause it to spread to others. 90% of people who have not developed any immunity to measles may become infected.
The illness can become a very serious health problem, especially in children younger than 5 years old and pregnant women. Symptoms occur 7 to 14 days after exposure to the virus, including high fever, cough, runny nose, a characteristic rash and red, watery eyes. The rash begins as flat red spots on the face and spreads down to the neck, truck and the extremities. Serious health complications include ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia and brain swelling.
People can developed immunity to measles either through vaccination or prior infection. Due to a highly effective vaccination program, measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. However, this is changing due to the increasing number of unvaccinated individuals. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective and provide the best protection against measles. People are often vaccinated before they are school age. Until the vaccine was available in 1963, almost every child was infected with measles. Before 1963, 3 to 4 million people were infected with measles in the U.S. every year including 500 deaths and 48 thousand hospitalizations.
According to a recent Yahoo News interview with Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, “Measles is a great exploiter of unvaccinated individuals. If you have a significant population that has not been vaccinated, then measles can rip through those populations very quickly because it’s one of the most highly transmissible virus agents we know.”
Listen to the full report below:
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Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, healthyasheville@ashevillefm.org