In Texas rooted the deteriorating burning of measles Two dozen And the hospitalization of nine on the western edge of the state, where in recent years the rate of vaccination has been reduced.
On Tuesday, 22 children and two adults were infected, all of whom were non -skinical, local health officials said. The outbreak comes when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a firm critic of child vaccines, was nominated for another Minister of Health of the country, which caused public health experts to worry that they would become more frequent.
“There is a feeling that it will be more common,” Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an expert on infectious diseases at Duke University.
Texas outbreak has so far been limited to the inhabitants of the Gaines County, which borders on a new Mexico and has about 20,000 inhabitants. Last year, 82 percent of kindergarten students received a vaccine against measles, mumps and vaccines against rubella. This number is about 10 percentage points lower than the average vaccination rate in Texas and far below the federal goal of 95 percent for measles vaccination.
The degree of vaccination was decreasing nationwide Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and now sitting below 93 percent. Estimated 280,000 kindergartens In the United States, according to federal data, they do not have documentation on the MMR vaccine.
Texas public schools require children to receive certain vaccines, including the MMR shot, but parents can apply for an exception for “conscious reasons”, including religious beliefs.
Last year, More than 13 percent According to data from the state health department, the K-12 students in the Gaines County district received the liberation of the vaccine. This is one of the highest extent of liberation in the state.
Lara Anton, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health Services in Texas, said the cases were concentrated in the “island” community in the region, among people attending church and private schools. Many children are also home schools, said Mrs. Anton.
The local medical departments have set up a vaccination clinic for a seinol ride, a city in the center of Gaines County, known for its large Mennonite community. So far, it has participated well, said Mrs. Anton.
The most common side effects of measles – high fever and spotted red rash – usually occur within a few weeks. However, serious complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling, are possible, especially in children under 5 years of age.
Roughly one of the five unacciated people who are infected with measles is according to hospitalization Centers for control and prevention of diseases. Mrs. Anton said that all nine of the hospitalized patients were school age children and that many of them spent time in the intensive care unit.
“It’s a serious illness,” she said. “We are trying to impress the community that you have to take steps to protect yourself.”
Civil servants have warned that cases are likely to appear in the surrounding communities because of the “highly contagious nature of the disease”.
The Ministry of Health in New Mexico reported this week that a teenager who lived in the region border with Texas Tested positively on measlesAlthough the child had no known exposure to the focus of the grains.
