As measles cases in West Texas are still on the rise two months after the outbreak began, local public health officials say they expect the virus to keep spreading for at least several more months and that the official case number is likely an undercount. But there’s a silver lining, officials say: More people have received a measles, mumps and rubella vaccination this year in Texas and New Mexico, which also has an outbreak, compared to last year — even if it’s not as high as they would like. And pharmacies across the U.S., especially in Texas, are seeing more demand for MMR shots. As of Friday, the outbreak in Texas was up to 309 cases and one measles-related death, while New Mexico’s case count was up to 42 and also one measles-related death. Forty-two people have been hospitalized across the two states. Texas’ outbreak, which has largely spread in undervaccinated Mennonite communities, could last a year based on studies of how measles previously spread in Amish communities in the U.S. Those studies showed outbreaks lasted six to seven months, said Katherine Wells, director of the public health department in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock’s hospitals have treated most of the outbreak’s patients and the public health department is closely assisting with the response. “It being so rural, now multistate, it’s just going to take a lot more boots on the ground, a lot more work, to get things under control,” Wells said during a media briefing this week. “It’s not an isolated population.” The outbreak includes 14 Texas counties, two New Mexico counties and four probable cases in Oklahoma, where health officials said the first two were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks. Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. Its slow way of spreading makes it especially hard to contain and outbreaks can have multiple peaks, said Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Many people spread the measles virus unknowingly for days before the telltale rash appears. The virus also can hang in the air for up to two hours after a sick person has left a room. “Within this community, it’d be perfectly reasonable to think probably another couple months before things die out,” Lessler said. “But if it gets into another community, you just potentially start that clock over again.” If the outbreak goes on until next January, it would end the United States’ status of having eliminated measles, which is defined as 12 months without local virus transmission, said Dr. William Moss, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center. “We’re only three months in. I think if we had a strong response where the messaging was clear that measles vaccination is the way to stop this outbreak, I would be surprised if it went for 12 months or more,” said Moss, who has worked on measles for 25 years, mostly in Africa. “But we’re not seeing that type of response, at least from the federal government.” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instead has sown doubt about the measles vaccine, which has been safely used for more than 60 years and is 97% effective after two doses. In an interview with Fox News last […]