A outbreak of measles in the US is coming in 100 cases because it spreads in areas with more heavy population, mainly affecting children and adolescents.
It was first discovered at the end of January as two school children were hospitalized for disease in Ganes County, Texas, the highly infectious virus has crossed the state borders in New Mexico and Georgia, causing missing cases There is apprehension.
A list of current exposure sites can be found here in West Texas.
Out of 93 Known cases, at least 23 are beesn hospitalized so far. More than 80 percent of cases are individuals under 19 years of age, which is closed to many private schools.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Rekha Laxmanan SuspiciousTelling Amy Maxman in KFF Health News: “We are going to see more children infected. We will see more families taking time out of work. More children in the hospital.”
Measles may spread before the emergence of symptoms, including fever, cough, flowing nose and irritated eyes, white spots in the mouth and a red flat skin rash about three days after initial symptoms. In the worst cases, highly infectious viruses can cause serious health complications including pneumonia, blindness, brain damage and death.
“Measles is a highly infectious aerial disease that is spread by contact with an infected person through cough and sneezing,” Warned Hayes County Local Health Authority Physician John Turner in a public health warning. “Texas is currently experiencing the biggest outbreak of measles in decades.”
Measles virus, PeacockCan survive in the air for hours, allowing each infected person to spread it on an average to 18 other individuals.
Once in a person’s airways, the RNA molecule targets its immune cells, mimics within them and spreads itself through the lymphatic system. Here, it not only suppresses immunity, but also destroys body protection against infection. Wipe the memory of the immune system,
This ‘memory loss’ can continue for three years, causing people to become weak for secondary infections like pneumonia – Main cause of death In measles children.
Years after recovery, the infection can still trigger a rare but fatal situation in the central nervous system called. Subcutaneous sclerosing panensflitis,
There is no specific treatment for the disease, but vaccination programs have successfully suppressed the spread of measles for decades, which has led to an official elimination of the disease in the US at the turn of the century. Before the development of the vaccine, Every year some 48,000 hospitals were hospitalized and around 500 deaths as a direct result of the infection.
Health officials have warned over the years that the reduction in vaccine will lead to maximum outbreaks of measles, a reality that is Currently revealed WorldwideMeasles Outbreak increased 45 times in Europe between 2022 and 2023.
Most of those who are infected in the current American outbreak are unnatural. Gaens is a region with county One of the lowest vaccine rates in Texas. About 20 percent of parents Young children have filed for vaccine exemption in the area.
Health officials in Texas are running mobile testing units in schools and pop-up vaccine clinics are also running to try to get ahead of the disease, while also facing. Rising health policy obstacles For widcale vaccination.
