this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025

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In rural West Texas, a measles outbreak grows with no end in sight (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

A measles outbreak in rural West Texas has surged to 49 confirmed cases, mostly among unvaccinated school-age children, with officials suspecting hundreds more unreported infections.

The outbreak is centered in Gaines County, home to a large Mennonite population with low vaccination rates. Despite CDC support, Texas has not requested federal intervention.

The outbreak has now spread to Lubbock, raising wider public health concerns.

Experts warn it could persist for months without increased vaccination efforts, but skepticism toward vaccines remains a significant barrier.

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[–] NaibofTabr 97 points 1 year ago (4 children)

We think of measles as a minor viral infection of kids that causes fever, rash, and a runny nose, and goes away without major complications. Unfortunately, that is not always so. Nervous system disease is a particular problem. SSPE occurs as a late, fatal measles complication in one out of 1,367 cases of measles in children younger than 5. One out of 1,000 children with measles gets an infection of the brain (encephalitis) early in the course of measles. About 15% of children with measles encephalitis die. Measles encephalitis led to the death of the writer Roald Dahl's daughter Olivia.

Children's brains can also develop an allergic reaction to the measles virus several weeks after infection. This is called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). Children seem to recover, then get fever, confusion, headaches, and neck stiffness. Like SSPE and measles encephalitis, ADEM occurs in about one out of 1,000 cases of measles. It is fatal in 10% to 20% of patients. Survivors of measles encephalitis and ADEM often have epilepsy, brain damage, or developmental delay.

Measles has other serious complications. During pregnancy, it causes miscarriages. Measles can infect the cornea, and was once a common cause of blindness. Ear infections and hearing loss are frequent. Measles virus also infects the lungs, causing pneumonia in 3% to 4% of cases. Measles weakens the immune system for at least two months. Sometimes patients die of other infections immediately after they recover from measles. In a measles epidemic that killed more than 3,000 soldiers in the US Army in 1917–18, bacterial pneumonia was the major cause of death.

Measles: The forgotten killer - John Ross, MD, FIDSA, Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

[–] minkymunkey_7_7@lemmy.world 64 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Essentially, when you're infected with measles, your immune system abruptly forgets every pathogen it's ever encountered before – every cold, every bout of flu, every exposure to bacteria or viruses in the environment, every vaccination. The loss is near-total and permanent. Once the measles infection is over, current evidence suggests that your body has to re-learn what's good and what's bad almost from scratch. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia

[–] Kitathalla@lemy.lol 17 points 1 year ago

current evidence suggests that your body has to re-learn what’s good and what’s bad almost from scratch

While that's horrifying, I wonder if it could offer a glimpse into ways to get rid of allergies.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

Wow that's nuts.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, that sounds pretty bad, but how contagious is it?

[–] sapient_cogbag 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Extremely, iirc. According to wikipedia:

It is extremely contagious: nine out of ten people who are not immune and share living space with an infected person will be infected.[5] Furthermore, measles's reproductive number estimates vary beyond the frequently cited range of 12 to 18,[17] with a 2017 review giving a range of 3.7 to 203.3

For context the reproductive number (average number of unexposed people a carrier will infect) of the most virulent strains of COVID-19 is 3-8. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35262737/ (basic vs effective rate refers to the infectiveness in a naive population vs one which is taking measures and/or has immunity).

This is also all exponential so small increases in R number have big impacts nya.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure measles is the one where you can catch it by just walking into a room where someone where an infected person was two hours ago.

Imagine it's third period trig and you caught measles from the kid who was in first period trig without ever having seen him.

It's bad. Afaik measles is the most contagious disease we've ever seen.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but this doesn't happen if you eat right, work out, get your chakras aligned and get enough vitamin D from sunshine, right?

[–] NaibofTabr 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

IKR? This is what it has come to...definitely not serious, BTW.

But the level of Poe's Law has only gotten worse with time, it seems.