Health officials in Kansas say a measles outbreak there could be linked to the spread of measles in New Mexico and Texas.
The Kansas outbreak doubled in less than a week to 23 cases.
The Department of Health here in New Mexico says there are now 43 reported cases of measles, 41 of them in Lea County, which borders Texas, where there have been more than 300 cases this year.
And health officials in Ohio say a single case identified in Ashtabula County has spread to nine others.
Even before Kansas and Ohio reported their growing clusters, the number of measles cases in the U.S. had already surpassed the case count for all of 2024, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment put doctors on high alert on Monday and recommended early vaccination for infants 6 to 11 months old who live in outbreak counties or near them.
There is also an Oklahoma outbreak of 9 cases that health officials there have “associated” with Texas and New Mexico.
Public health experts say the outbreak that started in Texas in late January could last for months could last for months.
They say that if it hits other unvaccinated communities across the U.S., as may now be the case in Kansas, the outbreak could endure for a year and threaten the nation's status as having eliminated local spread of the vaccine-preventable disease.
Experts consider communities protected from measles outbreaks if they have an MMR vaccination rate of 95% or higher.
The two-shot series is required before entering public kindergarten and is 97% effective at protecting against measles.
Here in New Mexico, a number of the state’s public health offices and vaccination clinics are offering walk-in inoculations.
Many of them are in the southern part of the state but there’s clinics with scheduled hours in Santa Fe, Espanola, Taos, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.
Learn more about the state response at nmdoh.org
Adapted from an Associated Press story.