Multiple hospitals in North Carolina are on high alert this week after confirming the state’s first measles case in a popular college town.
Doctors and health officials are on the lookout for people exhibiting signs of the infection, including a red, splotchy rash, fever, cough, runny nose, and sore throat.
The child visited several public places after being infected, putting a concerning number of people at risk, as measles has an infection rate of 12-18, meaning one infected person can spread it to 12 to 18 other people.
It is so contagious that if someone has it, it can spread to 90 percent of people who aren’t immune, such as those not vaccinated.
Measles vaccination rates in the US are high, with about 91 percent of children receiving the MMR vaccine by age two. To stop the virus from spreading, however, coverage needs to be at least 95 percent for herd immunity.
But in many pockets of the US, parents are increasingly choosing to forego vaccination for their children, often citing debunked claims about injuries and a retracted paper linking the shots to autism.
The current outbreak, which has sickened 1,200 people, killed three, and spread to all but 13 states, has its epicenter among Mennonite communities in West Texas, where vaccination rates hover around 46 percent.
North Carolina hospitals are just the most recent to be placed on high alert after reported measles exposures and infections and staff are bracing for more cases.
Multiple hospitals in North Carolina are on high alert this week after confirming the state’s first measles case in a popular college town (stock)
‘This was inevitable. We knew that eventually we would get a case here as well,’ Dr David Wohl at UNC Health said.
‘Measles is an incredibly infectious virus. It can linger in the air; it can linger on surfaces. People born before 1957, we basically assume you are immune because it was so widespread and it is so catchy, that it’s almost impossible that you weren’t exposed before the vaccines became available.’
The child visited Piedmont Triad International Airport, the Greensboro Science Center, the Greensboro Aquatic Center, and ParTee Shack, as well as several spots in Kernersville, including a Sleep Inn and Lowe’s grocery store, all in Guilford and Forsyth counties.
Joshua Swift, Forsyth County public health director, told the Raleigh News & Observer: ‘The patient has been treated and released, and is isolating and recovering.”
The child will no longer be considered infectious by Thursday.
North Carolina does not see many measles cases, with just one in 2024 and three in 2018.
However, Dr Michael Smith, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Duke Health, is concerned about low vaccination rates among children.
‘Until this year where we’ve had a lot of measles, as a parent you could say, “Well measles is not really common in the United States so I’m not going to worry about it,”’ he said. ‘That story is not true.
‘The MMR vaccine does not cause autism. Don’t take it from me as a doctor – I’m a dad and both my kids are vaccinated. This is a safe and effective vaccine.’
Hospitals are on the lookout for people exhibiting signs of the infection, including a red, splotchy rash, fever, cough, runny nose, and sore throat (stock)
Weekly case rates are on the decline. They reached a high the last week of March, with 116 new cases, before falling to 24 cases the week of May 11
Despite cases of measles reaching peaks not seen since 2019, the CDC’s newly formed committee for vaccine recommendations announced that the outbreak has stalled.
Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said: ‘There’s some really good indicators that we have hit a plateau, the cases are definitely decreasing.
‘As we are seeing fewer cases in the southwest, we continue to see global introductions come into the US, which thankfully to date have mainly been short, terminal trains of transmissions as opposed to more sustained transmissions we saw in the southwest.’
Overall, the risk to the US population is low, according to the CDC’s committee, though state health agencies will continue to closely monitor transmissions and communities at higher risk.
Yet Dr Wohl told WRAL News that the hospital staff have been working hard for months to prepare for an outbreak of measles or multiple outbreaks at once.
Weekly case rates are on the decline, reaching a high the last week of March, with 116 new cases, before falling to 24 cases the week of May 11.
They shot up again to 52 cases the week of May 18. The week ending June 15 saw nine new cases confirmed, marking the lowest count since the outbreak began in mid-January.
Yet several other states – Washington, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia, among others – have also been placed on high alert after public health officials identified new cases, in some instances, for the first time in decades.
Several states – Washington, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia, to name a few – have also been placed on high alert after public health officials identified new cases, in some cases, for the first time in decades
In Virginia, staff have identified two exposures to measles within a one-week period at Dulles International Airport. One infected person, who had visited multiple businesses, came from North Carolina, while the second was an international traveler.
In Michigan, the Grand Traverse County Health Department confirmed a third case of measles and has officially put the public on notice.
Dr Joe Santangelo, Munson Healthcare’s Chief Medical, Quality and Safety Officer, warned: ‘Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to man.
‘With something like measles, we want to be very proactive in notifying the community if they may have been exposed to measles just because of how contagious this virus can be.
‘We do believe it to be isolated to a bit of a population and we did share some exposure sites late last week and we’re going to continue to monitor that.’
Child vaccination rates in the US have been declining since the Covid pandemic and have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
State immunization programs reported pandemic-related disruptions in the 2021-22 school year.
Cold-like symptoms, such as a fever, cough and a runny or blocked nose, are usually the first signal of measles. A few days later, some people develop small white spots on the inside of their cheeks and the back of their lips. The tell-tale measles rash also develops, usually starting on the face and behind the ears, before spreading to the rest of the body
Studies indicate between 26 percent and 41 percent of households had at least one child miss or delay a well visit during the pandemic.
The rate of vaccine exemptions among kindergartners — covering both medical and nonmedical reasons — held steady during the pandemic.
However, in the 2022–23 school year, exemption rates increased in 41 states, raising the national rate from 2.6 percent to 3 percent, the highest ever recorded in the US.
Ten states reported exemption rates above five percent. Among kindergartners with exemptions, more than 93 percent were for nonmedical reasons.
