Low measles vax coverage puts Taos County at risk

Dr. John Foster, hospitalist at Holy Cross Medical Center, said "eliminated" means the disease was no longer "endemic, which means it's got kind of a constant background presence in the population."

It was eliminated "thanks to a highly effective vaccination program in the United States, as well as better measles control in the Americas region," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2024, Taos County had the lowest measles vaccination coverage in Northern New Mexico among children ages 1–18. At 90.7 percent, Taos County was sixth lowest of all 33 New Mexico counties for measles-mumps-rubella coverage last year, according to NMHealth data. Curry County had 81.9 percent coverage while Catron County had 84.21 percent coverage. McKinley County had the greatest MMR coverage at 96.3 percent.

Since it began tracking exemptions for vaccines among children attending school in New Mexico in 2016, the number of religious exemptions has increased by roughly 30 percent and medical exemptions has declined by around 40 percent. There were 146 medical exemptions with affidavits recorded in the current school year and 84 religious exemptions with affidavits. Religious exemptions without an affidavit accounted for 5,107 of the total vaccine exemptions.

A decline in vaccine acceptance generally is putting communities at risk, Foster said. The national median MMR vaccination rate dropped from 94.3 percent to 92 percent between the 2019–20 and 2023–24 school years, according to a recently published scientific study, "indicating a growing risk of measles resurgence and emphasizing the urgent need to reinvigorate childhood vaccination campaigns."

"They say for measles, you need to have 95 percent of the population vaccinated to be sure you've got that herd immunity," Foster said. "So we're kind of flirting with problems now there's so many people declining vaccines."

Five years after the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963, reports of the disease plummeted from nearly 500,000 per year to about 22,000 in 1968. In the decade leading up to the vaccine's introduction, nearly all children in the U.S. got measles by the time they were 15 years old, according the CDC. And prior to the vaccine becoming available, between 400–500 people died from measles each year, 48,000 were hospitalized and around 1,000 suffered encephalitis, or swelling of the brain.

A child in Texas who was unvaccinated died last week, representing the first measles death in the country in 10 years. As of Tuesday (March 4), there were 164 cases reported in 10 states, 159 of which were in West Texas. Nine measles cases had been reported in Lea County in Southeast New Mexico, adjacent to Gaines County, the epicenter of the West Texas outbreak that appears to have begun in the Mennonite community there.

The New Mexico Department of Health has not identified any direct contact between the latest New Mexico outbreak and the Texas outbreak. But officials here launched a bilingual measles resources website, measles.doh.nm.gov. The site tracks cases, provides answers to frequently asked questions and promotes state-specific prevention guidelines. The last measles outbreaks in New Mexico were in Rio Rancho in 1995 (28 cases) and in Santa Fe in 1996 (16 cases).

“While measles outbreaks don't respect state lines, our response is uniquely New Mexican — comprehensive, bilingual, and accessible to all communities,” said Miranda Durham, NMHealth chief medical officer. “We created this resource to empower New Mexicans with clear information about vaccinations, effectively protecting families from measles and preventing further spread within our communities.”

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory illness, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The virus is transmitted by direct contact with infectious droplets or by airborne spread when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. Measles virus can remain infectious in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area. Illness onset — high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes — begins a week or two after someone is exposed.

A few days later, the telltale rash breaks out as flat, red spots on the face and then spreads down the neck and trunk to the rest of the body. A person is contagious about four days before the rash appears to four days after. People with measles should stay home from work or school during that period.

"The best way to prevent getting sick is to be immunized with two doses of a vaccine against measles," according to the department. Measles vaccine is primarily administered as the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are highly effective at preventing measles, although in rare instances vaccinated individuals may become infected.

Decades of declining participation rates for a host of childhood and other vaccines accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, including for the MMR vaccine, which decades ago was the subject of a now-debunked study that falsely linked the vaccine to autism.

"It's one of the most highly contagious diseases we know," Foster said. "We were able to eliminate endemic measles in the United States because so many people are vaccinated."

The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine makes it far less likely for you to get measles than someone unvaccinated with no immunity. Those born before 1957 are already immune. The NMHealth Helpline, 1-833-796-8773, is staffed by nurses for help in English and Spanish for questions about where to go for and what to know about vaccinations.