It may have only been a matter of time or fate. Either way, the measles outbreak that has peppered the United States this year finally landed in Colorado. On the last day of March, the State Health Department identified a single case of measles in Pueblo.
While it was only a single case, the CDC and Colorado Department of Public Health say it only takes three cases of measles to be considered an outbreak and a serious public health concern.
Measles is one of the most highly communicable viruses and despite it being thought of as a normal childhood illness, measles, say public health officials, needs to be taken seriously.
Measles can live for up to two hours in an airspace after an infected person leaves an area. The incubation period of the virus is typically 11-12 days from exposure until the first symptom. It is also infectious, says the CDC, four days before and four days after a rash is visible.
Currently twenty states have reported measles with the largest incidents striking Texas and New Mexico. Colorado’s case was an unvaccinated adult man who had recently visited a town in Mexico experiencing a measles outbreak.
Because of the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico—a combined 535 cases—Pueblo and Colorado health officials were ready, said Pueblo County Health spokesman Trysten Garcia. “Our team has been working internally for quite some time,” he said. “Our team was ready,” and had prepared “initial fact sheets.”
Measles can be dangerous, especially for babies and young children. Children infected with the virus face potential long-term health consequences. Health officials strongly recommend vaccinations which offer 97 percent effectiveness. The first measles vaccine, health officials say, should be given at 12-15 months. A second vaccine is recommended at age 4 or before they start school. The dual vaccines offers protection for life.
Once the virus was confirmed in Pueblo, a team of specialists fanned out to three locations in the city where individuals may have been exposed. “We feel lucky to have a team of infectious disease specialists,” he said. “When it was time to do contact tracing,” Garcia said, the team visited each site and determined that there were no other victims.
Following the news that measles had landed in Pueblo, the county’s health department said “a number of folks visited” the health department for vaccinations.
While most medical experts are vaccination advocates, the country’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has often spoken out against vaccinations.
“There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year,” Kennedy has said. “It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, etc., and so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”
However, since his confirmation earlier this year, Kennedy has moved closer to endorsing the MMR vaccine. But he has also repeated his recommendations for Vitamin A and cod liver oil as preventatives against measles. But the majority of health officials say neither is supported by scientific data. In fact, they say there are serious downsides to these alternative choices.
Excessive amounts of Vitamin A, they say, can cause nausea and vomiting, headache, fatigue, and joint and bone pain. Too much Vitamin A has also been found to cause dangerously high pressure inside the skull that pushes on the brain. Liver damage, confusion and coma have also been recorded from too much of the vitamin.
Most of measles outbreak in Texas has been largely in west-Texas and in an unvaccinated county where there is a large Mennonite community. In January alone, Texas health officials counted 315 cases. To date, there have been two reported measles fatalities in Texas and New Mexico. The Texas death was a school-aged child. The New Mexico fatality was an adult.
