United States: Health authorities issued an urgent advisory on Tuesday regarding the escalating measles outbreak gripping western Texas, with an additional case surfacing just across the state border in New Mexico.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has verified 24 cases of measles, all linked to symptom onset within the past fortnight. Notably, Gaines County—a sparsely populated region in West Texas—harbors one of the state’s most significant proportions of vaccine exemptions.
Meanwhile, in adjacent Lea County, New Mexico, officials sounded the alarm following the diagnosis of an unvaccinated teenager. The youth’s infection has raised concerns over potential secondary exposure, with health officials identifying a hospital emergency ward and a sixth-grade gymnasium in Lovington as potential sites of contagion, according to the reports by the Associated Press.
“The affected individual in New Mexico had neither recent travel history nor documented contact with known measles cases from the Texas outbreak,” the New Mexico Department of Health clarified in a public statement.
In Texas, nine of those infected have required hospitalization. Every confirmed case in Gaines County involves individuals who had foregone vaccination.
Measles, an exceedingly transmissible viral pathogen, lingers in aerosolized form for up to two hours in enclosed spaces. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 90 percent of unvaccinated individuals who come into contact with the virus will contract the disease.
As per the reports by the Associated Press, prior to the 1963 introduction of the vaccine, the United States recorded between 3 million and 4 million cases annually. Presently, annual case counts typically remain below 200.
In response, Gaines County health officials swiftly established a drive-through immunization site last week, offering both inoculations and screening services to the populace. Concurrently, the New Mexico Department of Health announced a series of walk-in vaccination clinics in Hobbs, set to commence next week.
The national landscape saw a notable surge in measles cases throughout 2024, including a significant outbreak in Chicago that afflicted over 60 individuals, as per AP News.
Texas statutes permit vaccine exemptions for schoolchildren on the basis of personal conscience, including religious convictions. Over the past decade, the proportion of children granted such exemptions has climbed from 0.76 percent in 2014 to 2.32 percent in 2023, as per data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.