Texas health officials said on Monday that the measles epidemic which had reported more than 700 people in the state and killed two children is over – although they have warned that the threat posed by the disease is not.
It has been more than 42 days since a new case of measles has not been reported in the West Texas epidemic which started at the end of January, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Public health experts generally consider that it is the marker at the end of a measles epidemic, said DSHS, because 42 days is double the maximum time he can take to a person to show symptoms of measles after being exposed to the virus.
According to DSHS, 762 cases of measles were confirmed in the state. The epidemic began in the undervacinated mennonite communities of the County Gaines, and was then linked to cases of measles in other states, including New Mexico and Kansas. Two not vaccinated girls in Texas died of causes related to measles earlier this year.
By announcing the end of the Texas epidemic, DSHS applauded state health professionals, many of whom had never seen a case of measles before this year, for their work. But the ministry also warned: “The end of this epidemic does not mean that the threat of measles is over.”
The measles is very contagious and can be fatal, although it is avoidable by the vaccine through the measles vaccine, mumps and rubella (MMR). The disease was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, public health experts widely attributed to a successful vaccination program. But mmr vaccination rates have decreased in recent years and cases of measles have increased. This year, largely due to the Texas epidemic, the number of measles cases reached a 33-year-old record in the United States
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As of August 5, there were 1,356 cases of confirmed measles across the country this year, according to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among these, 92% were people who were not vaccinated or that their vaccination status was unknown. In total, there were three confirmed deaths of measles this year: the two children not vaccinated in Texas and an adult not vaccinated in New Mexico. Before this year, the last time a person was known to have died of the causes related to measles in the United States, it was in 2015.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Center Education Center, says it is reasonable to say that the current Texas epidemic calmed up according to the available data. But he also expresses the concern that the official figures underestimate. Many people in the Mennonite community are generally not procurged of medical care, he says, it is therefore possible that some people have contracted measles whose public health officials were not aware. Also criticizes the Trump administration cuts to the CDC, which he worried could affect the agency’s ability to follow cases.
Historically, said offer, cases of measles culminated during the winter months and decreased in spring and summer, so it fears that the number increases again in a few months.
“I don’t think it’s the end at all,” says Offer. “It should be a warning to parents that if they have not vaccinated their children, it’s time.”
The concerns concerning the potential consequences of the drop in vaccination rates also extend beyond measles. Because measles is one of the most contagious viruses, it is often the first to feel a resurgence when vaccination rates drop, public health experts have said in time, warning that increasing cases could be a sign that other diseases could also become more common.
Offer also says that obtaining measles causes “immune amnesia”, which means that after being infected with the disease, a person is more sensitive to other pathogens – even those that the person’s immune system has been able to fight before.
Offer calls the Texas epidemic “a warning shot”. The epidemic, he says, has shown that many parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children against measles – and the consequences of this.
“On the one hand, it is good to say that the fear that we all have now can be relaxed by the fact that the virus does not seem to spread now [in Texas]”Said Offit.” But really, I think messaging should be one of the: it was a warning, and several people, including two little girls, paid the price. »»
“We cannot let it happen again,” he continues. “It is unacceptable to kill a child of something that is entirely avoidable.”
