Measles outbreak hits the panhandle hard: Region has five of the counties with the lowest number of vaccinated children
By Kiley Phillips, kilphill@ttu.edu
In late February an unvaccinated child died of measles in West Texas.
This was the first time a child has died of the deadly disease since 2015.
More than 30 others were hospitalized, and Gaines County, Texas has become one of the epicenters of the outbreak.
Of the 279 cases reported in Texas so far, 191 are in Gaines County, which also happens to be one of top 10 Texas Counties when it comes to unvaccinated children.
Another 86 cases are sprinkled around West Texas and the Panhandle, which is home to four more of the top 10 counties when it comes to unvaccinated children (Crosby, King, Briscoe and Borden.)
“When there are drops in vaccination levels, and when there’s no trust in public health, you see measles outbreaks first,” said Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious diseases physician in New York City,
Dr. Jessica Gray, a family medicine physician at UMC Medical Center in Lubbock, agreed, saying that an infection like measles has the ability to spread rapidly in areas where there’s a large concentration of unvaccinated individuals.
“The problem is that if you have a case in an area where people are not vaccinated,” Gray said, “the virus just spreads like wildfire.”
To make matters worse, it is unclear how the federal government will respond to the outbreak.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the new Health and Human Services Secretary, is an anti-vaxxer. He wrote a forward to “The Measles Book” back in 2021, saying that American have been misled by pharmaceutical companies and government agencies into believing measles is a deadly disease.
As to the situation in West Texas, he said measles outbreaks are not unusual. They happen every year, adding that “measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear.”
Last year there were only 285 cases. This year, there have been 301 cases nationwide and it’s only March.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world and it has been spreading rapidly through West Texas. The state now has nearly as many cases as the U.S. had in all of 2024.
If one person has the disease 90% of not-immune people that come in contact with that person will become infected, according to the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases. The person with measles is contagious for four days before and four days after the rash appears.
Residents can gain immunity by taking the MMR vaccine, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those without exemptions typically receive their first dose at 12-15 months and their second dose at 4 to 6 years-old.
The vaccine is said to be 93% effective on the first dose and 97% effective on the second dose.
While some have claimed that herbal supplements and vitamins are effective in combating the disease. Dr. Gray said that’s not the case.
“I'll tell you right now, Vitamin A does not prevent Measles,.” she said.
Gray added that Vitamin A in large amounts can lead to toxicity which can cause acute to chronic harm, as well as the potential for overdose, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Vaccine skepticism and mistrust in pharmaceutical companies has grown in recent years following the Opioid Epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rates of parents vaccinating their children has dropped 8% since 2023, but an average of eight in 10 parents of children under 18 still keep their children up to date with recommended childhood vaccines such as the MMR vaccine.
Doctores know what they’re doing when it comes to measles, Dr. Gray said.
“We have so much data on measles and that is the scary part,” she said. “Unlike when COVID hit when we didn’t know what we were facing, we have data here.”
