Measles quickly spreading in Kansas counties with alarmingly low vaccination

Meanwhile, Texas kids reportedly getting liver damage from supplement touted by RFK Jr.

An eruption of measles is spreading quickly in Kansas, with cases doubling in a week and spreading to three new counties, some with vaccination coverage among kindergartners at pitiful levels as low as 41 percent. Coverage of 95 percent or greater is thought to protect communities from onward spread of the extremely contagious virus.

In an update Wednesday, March 26, Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) reported 23 measles cases across six counties—up from 10 cases across three counties on March 21. The 23 people ill with the dangerous virus are mostly children, including six who are 0 to 4 years old, nine who are 5 to 10, three who are 11 to 13, three who are 14 to 17, and two adults between the ages of 25 and 44. Fortunately, none of the cases have been hospitalized so far, and there have been no deaths.

Twenty of the 23 cases were unvaccinated. One case was "not age appropriately vaccinated," one was "age appropriately vaccinated," and the remaining case's vaccination status is pending.

Children should get two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, the first between the ages of 12 and 15 months and the second between the ages of 4 and 6, prior to starting kindergarten. Two doses are 97 percent effective against measles, offering lifelong protection.

The cases now span the counties of Grant, Gray, Haskell, Kiowa, Morton, and Stevens, all in the southwest corner of the state. Many of the counties have areas with extremely low vaccination rates. Haskell, which has reported 4 of the 23 cases, has two school districts, both with low vaccination coverage: Satanta with only 85 percent of kindergartners being up to date on their MMR vaccines in the 2023–2024 school year, and Sublette with just 41 percent. Likewise, Gray County includes school districts Cimarron-Ensign with 63 percent and Ingalls with 60 percent. Two other districts in the county had unreported vaccination rates.

The cases in Kansas are likely part of the mushrooming outbreak that began in West Texas in late January. On March 13, Kansas reported a single measles case, the first the state had seen since 2018. The nine cases reported last week had ties to that original case.

Spreading infections and misinformation

On Wednesday, KDHE Communications Director Jill Bronaugh told Ars Technica over email that the department has found a genetic link between the first Kansas case and the cases in West Texas, which has similarly spread swiftly in under-vaccinated communities and also spilled over to New Mexico and Oklahoma.

"While genetic sequencing of the first Kansas case reported is consistent with an epidemiological link to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the source of exposure is still unknown," Bronaugh told Ars.

Bronaugh added that KDHE, along with local health departments, is continuing to work to track down people who may have been exposed to measles in affected counties.

In Texas, meanwhile, the latest outbreak count has hit 327 across 15 counties, mostly children and almost entirely unvaccinated. Forty cases have been hospitalized, and one death has been reported—a 6-year-old unvaccinated girl who had no underlying health conditions.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that as measles continues to spread, parents have continued to eschew vaccines and instead embraced "alternative" treatments, including vitamin A, which has been touted by anti-vaccine advocate and current US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Vitamin A accumulates in the body and can be toxic with large doses or extended use. Texas doctors told the Times that they've now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who had been given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.

"I had a patient that was only sick a couple of days, four or five days, but had been taking it for like three weeks," one doctor told the Times.

In New Mexico, cases are up to 43, with two hospitalizations and one death in an unvaccinated adult who did not seek medical care. In Oklahoma, officials have identified nine cases, with no hospitalizations or deaths so far.

Source

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