AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Measles continues to spread in west Texas and New Mexico. About 300 cases have been reported since the outbreak began in January. But the actual number of infections is likely higher. At the same time, some isolated measles cases have been reported in a dozen other states, largely linked to international travel. Joining us now to talk about all things measles is NPR's Maria Godoy. Hi, Maria.
MARIA GODOY, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so let's talk about the difference between these isolated cases I just mentioned and the Texas outbreak. What's going on there?
GODOY: OK, well, so the U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000, and that just means there's not ongoing transmission for greater than 12 months in an area. But the U.S. has reported measles cases every year. It's usually unvaccinated people, you know, who are bringing measles back from traveling abroad. We see this all the time. We've seen that this year in Alaska and Maryland, where I live. An outbreak is different. It's when the virus is spreading locally. And right now, the virus is spreading in remote areas of west Texas and New Mexico. The concern is that you might have someone who is sick, and then they travel to another area where vaccination rates are low, and they could potentially seed another outbreak there.
CHANG: OK, and at that point, how do you stop that from happening?
GODOY: Vaccinations - so measles is the most contagious infectious disease known to man. It's more contagious than Ebola, than polio, than chicken pox. It's so contagious that in a world where no one's vaccinated, one person sick with measles could go on to infect 18 others on average, you know? And it's airborne, which means, you know, these infectious particles can linger in the air for up to two hours. So if you have a sick person walk into a room, cough, leave, and then an hour later, someone comes in, they could potentially get infected and pass it on to others.
The other thing is you're infectious from about four days before you develop that telltale red measles rash until four days after. So that's, you know, eight days really where you could be spreading it to others. Now, the good news is the measles vaccine is very safe and highly effective. Two doses of the vaccine is 97% effective, which - yeah. And you need high vaccination rates in a community so that there's no one vulnerable to measles, and so the virus has really nowhere to go and spread.
CHANG: I had no idea measles lingers in the air for two hours. Wow. OK. How is the federal government right now responding to this outbreak?
GODOY: It depends on which part of the federal government you're talking about. So the CDC has issued a measles alert and, you know, asked doctors to be on the lookout for people with fevers and the red rashes. It's sent vaccines to Texas. And it says, unequivocally, vaccination is the best defense against measles. But when it comes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary, he wrote an editorial piece for Fox, and he's been on Fox in an interview. He has said vaccines protect individuals from measles, and, you know, they contribute to community immunity. But he's also called vaccination a personal choice, and he didn't outright urge people to get vaccinated. The other thing he said was that good nutrition is a best defense against chronic and infectious diseases, which, again, the public health line has long been that when it comes to measles, vaccination is absolutely the best defense.
CHANG: Yeah. OK, well, another claim that we're hearing is that the vaccine is more dangerous than the measles virus. What are doctors saying about that?
GODOY: That's absolutely false. The vaccine is very safe and highly effective, again, two doses - 97% effective. Meanwhile, measles is still a dangerous virus. It can kill. You know, before we had vaccines, 4- to 500 kids used to die in the U.S. each year from measles. And it can cause blindness, deafness, brain swelling. The virus can also have long-term effects. So after a measles infection, to some extent, your immune system's memory can be erased, which means that pathogens your body used to know how to defeat, it no longer remembers how to defeat them, so you're not immune anymore.
CHANG: Wow.
GODOY: And this effect can last two to three years - I know, it's called immune amnesia. And, you know, it can even cause neurological problems years after infection.
CHANG: Oh. Well...
GODOY: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Given these potentially very, very serious consequences from measles, how worried should people be right now in light of this current outbreak?
GODOY: I want to stress that there's no reason to panic right now. Vaccination rates are still high enough nationwide in most places to stop a major outbreak from happening. But if vaccination rates continue to fall as they have been over the last several years, you know, in five to 10 years, experts I spoke with say we might go back to the days when we had measles outbreaks with thousands of cases and, you know, many deaths.
CHANG: Well, how can people better protect themselves right now?
GODOY: Get vaccinated if you're not already.
CHANG: Right.
GODOY: Make sure you've had two shots of the measles vaccine. And, you know, get your kids vaccinated too. Parents can talk to their pediatricians about getting younger kids vaccinated early if they're traveling abroad or are in an outbreak area. In fact, the CDC says anybody traveling abroad with an infant 6 months or older should, you know, get them vaccinated early. It's usually more about 12 months - that's the schedule. If you're not sure about your own vaccination status, and you can't check your immunization records, there's no harm in getting another dose.
CHANG: OK, let's just say you do the right thing. You get vaccinated. Like, I was vaccinated as a kid, and I think I even got the booster. What are the chances that you could get the measles, even though you're vaccinated?
GODOY: They're really, really low. So no vaccine is a hundred percent effective, but measles is pretty darn high - 97% effective. And you know what? The more people in a community are vaccinated, the more effective vaccine is for everyone.
CHANG: Absolutely. That is NPR's Maria Godoy. Thank you so much, Maria.
GODOY: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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