Odra explosions: What to know about the virus severity and the effectiveness of the vaccine

Odra cases are growing in West Texas, where the explosion has led to the first death of the USA from the virus for a decade.

But at a meeting with President Trump and other office officials this week, the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said that the situation “was not unusual.”

“We have the Odra epidemics every year,” he added. In the past, Mr. Kennedy also said that vaccinations against measles and some other infectious diseases are unnecessary and risky.

Public health experts said that although it is true that we have cases of measles in the United States each year, the latest explosion concerns its size, because the child has died and because larger such epidemics are becoming more repeated with a decrease in vaccination indicators.

“Although we certainly see from time to time, it is uncommon that we see the developing explosion of this scale,” said Jason Schwartz, a professor of health policy at Yale School of Public Health. Until now, at least 164 people were ill Odra. This is over half of the number of cases in all 2024 and higher than 59 cases documented in 2023.

How “normal” are the explosions of the Oder?

The Odra was announced from the USA in 2000, which was considered a breakthrough achievement of public health possible through the vaccine. Since then, there have been cases of each year – usually from someone who traveled abroad to the place where Odra is more common and restored the virus.

But in the first decade after the elimination, the virus did not spread beyond a compact number of people, experts said because most people in a given community were vaccinated. However, this has changed in recent years. In the school years in 2023–24 39 states had vaccination vaccination in the Oder below 95 percent, the target indicator of “herd resistance”, which can stop the spread of the virus. This is an boost from 28 states in the 2019-20 school year, According to KFF, A group of research on non -profit health policy.

Health experts say that there should be no explosions in the United States. “Each explosion means the passage of our public health defense and is a grave risk, especially for children,” said Dr. Jerome Adams, who was an American surgeon during the first Trump administration.

But the lower vaccination indicators allowed easier explosions. This was the case in southern California in 2014 and 2015, when the explosion associated with Disneyland increased to about 150 cases, and in Novel York in 2018 and 2019, when this Over 600 cases He appeared in Novel York and another 300 in Rockland.

“Unfortunately, this becomes a more common reality in the United States due to reduced vaccination indicators of our population,” said Dr. Lori Handy, deputy director of the vaccine education center at the children’s hospital in Philadelphia.

How effective is vaccination? How safe and sound?

A single dose of the opposite vaccine, which is supplied as part of a combination of measles, pigs and a rose vaccine known as MMR, is effective in relation to the Odra. The schedule of vaccines from childhood in the US recommends two doses, which together are effective in 97 percent.

Some fully vaccinated people (3 in 100) can continue to develop measles if they are exposed to the virus. But their symptoms are generally much milder, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan. Some think that this means that the vaccine does not work, she added, but that’s not true.

“He keeps you in front of the hospital and holds you away from the morgue,” she said. “This is what the Odra vaccine does.”

The measles vaccine vaccine was a special purpose of vaccine skepticism due to debris -tests combining it with autism. But the vaccine turned out to be extremely safe and sound and very effective for over 60 years of operate and research tens of thousands of children, said Dr. Adam Ratner, an expert on pediatric infectious diseases in Novel York and author of the book about the Oder.

Is the spread of the virus inevitable?

Odra is an extremely contagious virus. He stays in the air or on the surfaces for several hours after the infected person leaves the room. And it is still much more common in other parts of the world.

“It creates an environment that creates lighting,” said Dr. Schwartz. But this does not mean that gigantic epidemics or a wide spread of measles are inevitable in the United States.

“Fuel is unvaccinated,” he said.

In Gaines, Texas, where the current epidemic is centered, the vaccination rate among preschoolers is 82 percent. (Because school -age children are subject to community vaccinations, vaccination indicators among preschoolers give an approximate sense of community rates, said Dr. Schwartz.) In the whole country, the MMR vaccination indicator is slightly less than 93 percent.

Dr. Ratner said that the vaccination indicator said: “I think we will have many more Gaines poviats.”

How grave is the case of the Oder?

Before 1963, when the first measles vaccine was licensed, Odra earned from three million to four million people a year and was responsible for almost 50,000 hospitalizations and 400 to 500 deaths in the United States, in accordance with Disease control and prevention centers.

“The risk of measles infection is sometimes omitted by the passage of time and how far most Americans are from the sight of the Oder,” said Dr. Schwartz.

Odra usually starts with fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, as well as a rash that usually appears on the face and then spreads down.

About 20 percent of infected persons are hospitalized, according to CDC complications, there are more often among pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems as well as babies and youthful children whose immune system is still developing.

“This is not a icy,” said Dr. Handy.

Up to 20 children infected with measles will develop pneumonia, According to CDC. One in 1000 children has brain swelling, which can lead to blindness, deafness or seizures. In extremely uncommon cases, said Dr. Ratner, Odra can also cause a progressive and fatal neurological disease that develops a few years after infection.

And from one to three out of 1000 children infected with the Odra will die.

Today, Odrai still kills about 100,000 people – most children around the world.

Dr. Handy, who has compact children, said that Odra is for her as both a doctor and a parent.

“I know what to worry about,” she said. “And Odra scares me.”

Catherine Pearson reporting brought.