Measles was nearly eradicated in the US. This winter, however, an outbreak infected hundreds and caught national attention.
According to The New York Times, the measles outbreak is taking place in West Texas and New Mexico; more than 250 people have been infected in counties around the Texas-New Mexico border. A much smaller outbreak also occurred in Bergen County, New Jersey. Around the country, there are some isolated cases of measles; one person did report an isolated case in Orange County.
Why is this happening?
In Gaines County, Texas, where the virus has taken hold, childhood vaccination rates are low. In 2024, 82% of Gaines County kindergarteners received the measles-mumps-rubella (M.M.R.) vaccine, but this was far below the 95% rate needed to effectively prevent outbreaks. Many of the measles patients in West Texas and New Mexico have been unvaccinated, school-aged children.
In Lea County, New Mexico, about 94% of children and teens have been vaccinated, but only 63% of adults are recorded as having received one shot, and 55% as having received both doses. Low vaccination rates have allowed the virus to spread through families and communities. “If somebody hasn’t been vaccinated or hasn’t had measles before, and they come in contact with that virus, there’s a 90% chance that they’re actually going to become infected by the measles virus and end up getting sick,” Mrs. Groenke, a Biology and Anatomy and Physiology Honors teacher, explains.
How is measles spread?
Measles is airborne; it can be spread by an infected person who breathes, coughs, or sneezes. The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours.
Measles can be transmitted by an infected person from four days prior to the onset of the rash to four days after it erupts.
What are the typical symptoms of measles?
Symptoms usually begin 10-14 days after a person is exposed to the virus. The early symptoms, lasting 4-7 days, include a runny nose, cough, red and watery eyes, and small white spots inside the cheeks.
A prominent rash usually begins 7-18 days after exposure, on the face and upper neck; then, over about 3 days, it spreads to the hands and feet. This rash will usually last 5-6 days.
What are the dangerous complications of measles?
Measles symptoms tend to resolve relatively quickly. That said, in rare cases, the virus can cause pneumonia, an illness that causes people, particularly children, to struggle with breathing.
It’s also possible for measles to cause encephalitis, a swelling of the brain that can damage vision, hearing, and other cognitive abilities. Measles also causes a phenomenon called “immune amnesia”, where the body becomes unable to defend itself against illnesses that it has already been exposed to. Mrs. Groenke explains that the measles virus attacks cells inside the body that have memory against other diseases. “What ends up happening is that it’s not just that [a patient is] now trying to fight measles, but they’re now susceptible to a lot of other pathogens,” she explains. “A lot of the deaths that occur from measles are from getting infected from other diseases.”
As she says, most deaths from measles occur because of complications like pneumonia and immune amnesia, as well as ear infections and dehydration.
Who is most vulnerable to complications?
Complications are most common in children under 5 years and adults over 30. Children who are malnourished, especially those with vitamin A deficiencies or weakened immune systems due to diseases like HIV, are particularly vulnerable.
Patients who catch measles while pregnant are also especially endangered by the illness; this can also result in the baby being born prematurely with a low birth weight.
Unvaccinated children and pregnant persons are at the highest risk of severe measles complications.
What other viruses have been spreading this year?
Bird flu, according to the California Department of Public Health, has not been detected spreading from person to person. There have been 38 confirmed human cases in California, with the last one being reported on January 14, 2025.
Bird flu is currently affecting farm animals in states like California, where the Governor has proclaimed a State of Emergency. Because of this, CDPH is working to monitor bird flu in animals and protect people who work on farms.
The illness is airborne, and can also spread through raw milk or other contaminated surfaces. Symptoms in humans include eye redness or discharge, respiratory symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, aches, fatigue, fever, pneumonia, or even seizures. These symptoms can be serious.
The flu, COVID-19, RSV, and norovirus continue to cause disruptions. Norovirus cases spiked this winter, notably, even closing some schools for a short time. And despite COVID-19 cases rising during the winter wave, only 21% of adults and 10% of children have taken boosters.
And in Kansas City, Kansas, officials reported 2 deaths and dozens of infections from an outbreak of TB. Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease; an interview with Scientific American reveals that COVID made tuberculosis diagnoses a struggle. Many misdiagnoses took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and TB easily works its way into families and the community without diagnosis.
There are other outbreaks around the world occurring right now; Ebola has recently taken hold in Uganda, and Marburg in Tanzania. Mpox is circulating around the world, too; we should track these to understand the state of public health around the world, and ensure that these illnesses don’t spread worldwide.
What public health measures need to be taken to protect the population?
Ms. Groenke, a Biology and Anatomy and Physiology Honors teacher at CCHS, shares that getting vaccinated is the best way to fight measles. “They’ve been vaccinating people in the United States since the 1960s, and we nearly had it eradicated, but now we’re getting these outbreaks and they seem to be affecting primarily populations of unvaccinated people… because it’s so hardy, because it can live so long outside the body and because it’s so contagious, the only real tool we have against it is vaccination.”
Ms. Groenke acknowledges that some people are unable to get the vaccine for reasons such as allergies, so it’s important for those who can be immunized to do so.
To prevent bird flu, people should only consume pasteurized dairy products, and cook eggs and poultry to an internal temperature of 165^F. CDPH provides more resources for those who are working with animals like birds, cows, and cats.
Michelle Mello, a professor at Stanford’s medical and law schools, shares with Scientific American that we need to continue investing in public health infrastructure; if one level of the public health workforce loses people or resources, the others will falter, too.
Environmental changes that we have seen recently are giving rise to new pathogens, and behavioral changes have allowed pathogens to spread farther and faster. We need to build off the lessons of COVID-19, by creating infrastructure to mitigate impacts of infectious disease. Jennifer Nuzzo, founding director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, reminds us in the interview with Scientific American that “[w]e are not strong as a nation, we are not secure as a nation, we are not prosperous as a nation, we are not happy as a nation unless we have our health.”
