The measles outbreak in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma may continue for up to a year, Katherine Wells, DrPH, director of Lubbock Public Health in Texas, said in a press briefing March 18.
During the briefing, she said the outbreak’s spread across rural areas and multiple states has made containment efforts more difficult, according to a March 19 CNN report.
Here are six more things to know:
- Health officials reported 321 measles cases as of March 18, an increase of 25 cases from the previous week. Texas has recorded 279 cases, New Mexico has reported 38 and Oklahoma has reported four, according to the state health departments.
- The outbreak has disproportionately affected younger individuals, with 95 of the cases being in children up to age 4 and 130 among children ages 5-17. A total of 38 patients have been hospitalized, an increase of two over the previous week.
- Dr. Wells noted in the briefing that the outbreak’s rural spread and multistate nature make containment more difficult. “It’s just going to take a lot more boots on the ground, a lot more work to get things under control,” she told CNN. “It’s not an isolated population.”
- A new testing lab in Lubbock is helping speed up diagnosis, reducing the result turnaround times from 72 hours to same-day processing, according to local health officials.
- At least 320 measles cases have been reported in the U.S. so far this year, surpassing the 2024 total case count of 285, according to latest data from state health departments compiled by NBC News.
- Following a measles case that was reported at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, Vt., the University of Vermont Health Network is activating a systemwide task force to standardize its approach to measles preparedness. This includes clinical and operational teams working to ensure all facilities have the necessary protocols, education and resources in place.
“Each partner organization follows infection prevention precautions for measles and other infectious diseases already, but we have found especially during other national-scale challenges — such as Covid-19 and the recent IV fluid shortage — that we are much more effective working together as an integrated academic health system to make sure everyone has the education, support and supplies needed to provide the highest quality patient care,” a spokesperson for the Burlington-based health system told Becker’s.
