Texas Measles Outbreak 2025

It's a nasty disease with potentially dangerous outcomes.
I think that we are at risk in the UK, too, as fewer children are vaccinated.

Just had our RSV jab this afternoon. The surgery had notices in all languages urging people to get their children vaccinated against measles.

Is an epidemic expected?

I don't think there is imminent danger of an epidemic but the uptake for MMR has been steadily falling over the past decade.

There are a small group of children, namely those with penicillin or cephalosporin allergy, who cannot have the vaccine but it is safe for most children including those with an egg allergy.

My son had measles when he was a toddler. No MMR jab then in the 60s. He was very ill and we stayed with him day and night. Luckily he recovered with no problems
It is a very nasty disease that can leave people with health issues for the rest of their lives.

We do have periodic measles outbreaks in the UK, but the vaccination uptake rate is high so they are contained within small groups of population usually. Does anybody know if Texas has an unusually low vaccination uptake rate?

When I started teaching in the 70s, a girl in my class had recently lost her toddler brother to measles.
I wouldn't wish to see a return of this dangerous disease.

In West Texas the MMR vaccine uptake is 82.5%. I know uptake is a great deal higher in the UK but the trend is that it is becoming lower each year.

95% is required for ‘herd immunity’, pharmacies in Texas and Doctor services either have, or are, running out of vaccine. But it’s ok, the US Health secretary stated Vitamin A and cod liver oil would sort it, amongst other rather ridiculous suggestions

With an anti-vaxx Health Secretary is anybody surprised?

I've just read that MMR uptake in London is 81.8% for 2023/24.
It has been dropping throughout UK in last 5 years.
There are groups who go round the country and the world urging people not to vaccinate.
It's like a cult. I've come across them. They have events with refreshments and presentations.
Their acolytes attend and are urged to invite anyone they know. People are taken in by slick presentations. They raise money to carry on spreading the word as they see it.

I had measles as a child and I can still remember how ill I was.

My eyes became horribly itchy and the whites turned pink. I had a horrible rash that my mother treated with calamine lotion. I also had diarrhoea and my temperature soared so high that I was hallucinating so that when my mother tried to give me some tinned spaghetti in a bowl I thought it was live worms as I could see them moving.

I would not want anyone, particularly a child, to go through that especially now, when we have had an effective vaccine for years. Vaccines have saved literally millions of lives just as not having vaccines has killed millions of people, many of them children. Measles came very close to being eradicated until the anti-vaxers came on the scene.

Indigo8 SNAP! I was 6 or 7 when I had measles and was very poorly with it like you and my hallucination made me believe that I had swallowed everything that came near my mouth such as the thermometer, wash cloths and towels etc.

I don’t remember the rash so much as that horrid weird feverishness that seemed to go on for a long time.

My C are both approaching 60 and when they were young one of our neighbours was a leading scientist at a prestigious university.
He urged our group of friends not to vaccinate our children against measles.
Most of us didn’t and most of the children caught measles.
My S was very ill indeed I had a fold up bed in his room for some time and regretted my actions.
This friend also refused to ever have his teeth x-rayed citing damage to the brain.

RosieandherMaw

With an anti-vaxx Health Secretary is anybody surprised?

I don't think you can lay the blame at his door. The main sufferers seem to be teenagers and children who should have had their vaccines as babies, well before this administration.
Think rather the blame should lie with irresponsible, conspiracy theorist "health gurus," and parents who think they know better than the medical profession.

Agree absolutely * Freya*. I understand that the doctor who suggested a link between autism and vaccination ( struck off here) tours the USA promoting his wholly discredited message.

Of course I don’t think this has happened overnight , grant me some sense, but Kennedy jr is an advocate if not a product himself of a growing bonkers philosophy which instead of being derided and debunked, has been tolerated and even promoted culminating in his political appointment - the ultimate endorsement of the anti-vaxx fallacy.

Robert Kennedy has linked the measles outbreak to poor diet.
Measles is highly contagious and anyone can be infected however well fed they are.
He is against vaccination.
Children can die from measles or suffer life changing effects. My cousin is deaf and partially sighted after measles.
Vaccination has saved countless lives from many diseases and RFK, an influential man, is anti-vaxx.

The bigger worry is for the future I think, if vaccination is no longer available on Medicaid. With a Health policy against state involvement in healthcare, that must be a real possibility.

Soon after starting school, at 5, I got measles and gave it to my sisters, one of whom was under a year old and still breast-feeding. I remember our bedroom curtains remained closed as our eyes were sensitive to light. One of my aunts had lost the sight of one eye from measles as a child. I don't remember being very ill. Another aunt, who was visiting, sat on my bed and taught me to knit. I can still hear her voice: "in, over, through and off" and on and on...

I had measles when I was 5 and remember lying in a darkened room to protect my eyes. I was left with poor eyesight. I am happy to say that our children and GC are all vaccinated.

The measles vaccination has been around for a long time - not as the MMR but as a separate vaccination in the UK at least. I was vaccinated against measles in 1970 in the UK. The vaccination I missed out on was Mumps which I caught at the age of 33 and developed viral meningitis.

DH was a med student in the 1980s during a measles outbreak - he was on his paediatric rotation on a ward where several children died or suffered life changing effects.

It made us keep that our children were vaccinated

The US Health Secretary is one of those “irresponsible, conspiracy theorist "health gurus”

I had measles when I was about 5 in probably 1960. I can remember having to lie in bed in a darkened room because the light hurt my eyes.
My son is now 32 but I made sure he had the MMR jabs.

Anti-vax propaganda is pure bonkers.