Mar. 13 -- There are 223 confirmed cases of measles across nine counties in and around the South Plains, according to a media conference call with The Immunization Partnership Thursday.
There are two confirmed measles cases in Ector County.
The Department of State Health Services reports that there has been one fatality in a school-aged child who lived in the outbreak area. The child was not vaccinated and had no known underlying conditions. There have been 29 hospitalizations and 78 percent of cases are in children under 18, said Chief Strategy Officer Rekha Lakshmanan.
Lakshmanan said the epicenter of the outbreak is Gaines County has high immunization exemption rates and has had for years.
"If you look at the nine counties with confirmed cases. Sixty-seven (67) percent of those counties have school vaccine exemption rates above the state average," Lakshmanan said.
She said this matters because the research shows that vaccine exemptions cluster geographically, in neighborhoods, in schools and "they tend cluster in faith communities.
"This outbreak is a textbook case of what happens when we see high exemption rates and low vaccination rates," Lakshmanan added.
"In the midst of all of this we don't want to see lawmakers experiment by proposing laws to make it easier for parents to get an exemption, which will frankly lead to more public health crises and normalize these disease outbreaks," Lakshmanan said.
She added that there is a "a little bit of good news" in that the outbreak is leading parents to talk more to their pediatrician about getting their kids up to date on their vaccinations.
Director of Advocacy and Public Policy Wendy Ward said there are bills in the legislature that would make it "alarmingly easy, even unnecessary to obtain non-medical exemptions from school-required vaccines.
There is also legislation that could lower the threshold for obtaining vaccine exemptions that don't require medical justification, Ward said.
In the 2023-24 school year, there were more than 118,000 non-medical exemptions from one or more school-required vaccines which represents a 5,000 percent increase from 2003. Ward said this statistic demonstrates that non-medical exemptions are easy enough to obtain.
There is also a bill that would do away all together with the exemption process by doing away with school required vaccines as a requirement and prohibit the Department of State Health Services from requiring vaccines at all. Vaccines would become a recommendation on the part of DSHS. Because immunizations would be a recommendation and not a requirement, exemptions from school required or school recommended vaccines would be completely unnecessary, Ward said.
DSHS would not have information about exemption rates in counties and school districts and would be flying blind when it comes to understanding where there are areas at risk for disease outbreaks, Ward said. It could significantly lower community immunization rates and the risk of outbreaks of preventable diseases, she said.
Making the process political, Ward said, some Texas lawmakers want to transfer decision making authority about school required vaccines from infectious disease experts at DSHS to the legislature. Bills aiming to limit the power of DSHS in setting vaccine requirements include Senate Bill 117 authored by Sen. Bob Hall, R-Rockwall, which removes DSHS' authority to develop and maintain the list of school required vaccinations and transfers that authority to the legislature.
Ward said this bill also limits the number of vaccines required for school entry to specific vaccines and removes other vaccines that protect children from things like pertussis, whooping cough or chicken pox, for example.
She added that these diseases thrive even when there are small declines in immunization rates.
"This can lead to disease outbreaks," Ward said.
Dr. Ana Rojas-Montanez, a pediatrician at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and assistant professor of pediatrics, is on the front lines of the measles outbreak in the South Plains. Growing up in Marfa, she knows some of the obstacles that face residents of rural communities in getting healthcare.
The nearest urban community to Marfa is 170 miles and it's about 300 miles from Lubbock, she said.
Non-medical drivers to healthcare access are transportation -- getting to and from healthcare visits. Seminole in Gaines County is 80 miles from Lubbock.
There are also socioeconomic challenges, Rojas-Montanez said many of these families are hardworking farmers who can't take days off for medical appointments.
Healthcare coverage is another challenge. Many of the patients Rojas-Montanez sees are self paying.
"One of the biggest non-medical drivers of health is access to reliable resources with information that's based on fact rather than opinion," she said.
Rojas-Montanez added that childhood vaccines preserve childhood.
"That's why they're called childhood vaccines. It's important for all of us to continue to be the voice of truth, if you will, but also the voice of strength, and endurance and commitment to our families and children," she said.
Ector County Health Department Director Brandy Garcia said they will be setting up walk-in clinics soon.
Garcia said there are enough vaccines available as the MMR vaccine is very common and been around a long time.
"We do, we do have access to to get it whenever we need it," she added.
Ector County is not in an outbreak response right now because you have to have three confirmed cases to be considered to be in outbreak response.
There is emergency use MMR vaccine from the for the state, so Ector County would have access to that as well, Garcia said.
Lakshmanan said she thinks they are going to continue to see more cases before a decline is seen.
"The worrisome thing is, that many people are not getting their kids tested -- so if children are in the early, infectious stages of the virus and kids and families are out and about, there is more opportunity to spread the disease. We are also in the season where families travel for spring break, Houston has the Houston livestock show and rodeo happening, and Austin is hosting South by Southwest. All of these major gatherings and travel could be opportunities for new measles cases. The best way to slow things down and accelerate the end in sight, is to make sure kids are up-to-date on their measles vaccine," she said in an email following the conference call.
Lakshmanan added that health care providers taking care of patients with measles are more than likely wearing N-95 masks and other protective gear.
"Right now, there is no public health guidance for wearing masks to minimize the spread of measles," she said.
Should you get a booster?
"It depends. People born before 1957 are more than likely to have had measles so they should be immune. If you were born between 1963 and 1968, you probably had one dose, but the vaccine at that time was not as effective -- so the recommendation is to talk with your doctor about whether you need the current version of measles vaccine if you haven't had it. If you were born after 1968 you should be fine with one dose (two doses became the recommendation in 1989). Two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is 97% protective. Bottom line, talk to your doctor if you are uncertain about your vaccination status," Lakshmanan said.