A child and no vaccinated child who was hospitalized in Lubbock since last week after contracting measles in western Texas, as confirmed on Wednesday the State Health Department in a statement, without identifying the deceased or specifying his age or gender.
It is the first death due to measles in US territory since 2015, and the first related to the current outbreak of this infectious disease that has caused alarm in Texas, with at least 124 infections in nine counties, according to the state health department. There are also nine spreads in New Mexico.
Measles is a respiratory virus that can circulate in the air for up to two hours. It is highly contagious: nine out of 10 susceptible people contract it if they are exposed, according to the centers for disease control and prevention.
Most children who contract measles recover, but infection can result in complications and sequelae such as pneumonia, blindness, brain inflammation and death. The disease can be prevented in this way through the two doses of the triple or MMR vaccine (measles, papers and rubella).
With the vaccine measles had come to be considered an eradicated disease in the United States.
The outbreak has been recorded above all in a Mennonite community in an area where the villages are separated by a lot of land with oil perforations, but connected by people who travel between the areas to go to work, to the church or make purchases.
According to health reports, the vast majority of infected people were not vaccinated.
More parents are vaccinating their children
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Several parents who had previously chosen not to vaccinate their children are now going to health centers so that children are immunized, hoping to prevent the disease from becoming especially complicated and serious.
“People are increasingly nervous” when seeing how viral infection spreads in their communities, especially among minors, says Katherine Wells, director of Public Health of the Lubbock Local Department. “We have vaccinated several children who had never been vaccinated before, some because their families did not They believe In vaccines, ”he adds.
More or less half of the 100 doses of the triple vaccine that the Lubbock health department has put in the last week were for children who did not have vaccinations before, Wells said.
The Texas Department of Health and Human Services reported on Tuesday that since the end of January 124 cases of measles in the state have been registered, especially in the West, near New Mexico. 18 hospitalizations were reported, especially for breathing difficulties, and a death. Of the 124 cases, 101 are infections in babies or children and adolescents of school age.
Almost everyone had not been vaccinated or had not received the second dose of the MMR vaccine, which usually occurs at 5 years.
That dose, together with the inoculation that should occur when a child is 1 year, has an efficacy of 97% to protect against the disease, according to the centers for disease control and prevention.
“We are using the bus so that they do not finish the hospital, because measles is so contagious and moves through the air,” says Chad Curry, of University Medical Center EMS and supervises the operations. “We are trying to reduce the blow,” he adds.
But health authorities see that contagion spread. This week the State Department of Health and Human Services warned that he had found that an infected person traveled through the State; He was at the University of Texas in San Antonio and went to several restaurants and stores in other parts of that city.
Typical measles symptoms appear about two weeks after infection, and it is a fever of more than 104 ° F (40c), cough, nasal runoff and red and irritated eyes. After that, the salpt, first near the neck and scalp and then in other parts of the body.
