{"id":42578,"date":"2025-05-21T04:34:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42578"},"modified":"2025-05-21T04:34:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:34:57","slug":"when-measles-struck-a-surge-of-parents-stepped-up-to-vaccinate-their-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42578","title":{"rendered":"When measles struck, a surge of parents stepped up to vaccinate their children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kala Hunter did not hesitate to get her 2-year-old son, Brady, fully vaccinated in March as the number of measles cases grew<\/a> in her West Texas community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing in the hotbed of the measles outbreak,\u201d said Hunter, 47, of Lubbock, \u201cit was a no-brainer. If it was safe to get him vaccinated early, we were going to protect him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harmony Montes, 21, also of Lubbock, said she felt the same way. As the outbreak escalated in April, Montes jumped at the chance to get her daughter, Melody Rocha, vaccinated at her six-month checkup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t hesitate at all,\u201d Montes said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to risk her health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moms represent a recent surge in Texas parents opting to get their babies and toddlers the measles-mumps-rubella\u2002<\/a>(MMR)\u2002<\/a>vaccin<\/a>ation<\/a> as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunter said that her child\u2019s doctor assured her that the second vaccine dose was safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI trust my pediatrician,\u201d she said. Neither kid has had side effects like fever or rash from the shot, Hunter and Montes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New data from Truveta<\/a>, a health care and analytics company, shows that the percentage of 6-month-old babies in Texas getting their measles vaccination in April increased by more than 30 times the prior year\u2019s average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat means parents aren\u2019t just getting the vaccine early, they\u2019re getting it as early as they can,\u201d Nina Masters, a senior scientist at Truveta and part of the research team, said in an interview with NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, the MMR is given in two doses, around a child\u2019s first birthday, and again around the time a child enters kindergarten, at age 4 or 5. One dose is 93% effective at preventing measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A second dose increases protection to 97%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During measles outbreaks, however, the first dose can be given as early as 6 months old. If a child has already received the first dose at 12 months, doctors can give the second dose about a month later, said Dr. Ronald Cook, chief health officer at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and health authority for the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublic health measures, which include vaccinations, stop the spread of the virus, even in areas with outbreaks of measles,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the time, fewer than 2% of infants get vaccinated early for measles, according to the Truveta data. The company used its access to electronic health record information for tens of thousands of infants in Texas to assess early vaccination uptake in the state. That low percentage isn\u2019t surprising as the shots aren\u2019t generally given early unless there\u2019s an outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data shows that early vaccinations of Texan infants 6 to 11 months old ticked up in February as word of the outbreak spread. The number increased even more in March, and by April, it was exponentially higher than vaccination percentages before the outbreak began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a huge increase,\u201d Masters said. \u201cJust a really striking signal that vaccination behavior is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public health officials in Lubbock have noted similar increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine Wells, Lubbock\u2019s public health director, said her department has provided more than 500 MMR doses since the outbreak began. \u201cFor Lubbock County, we are estimating that local providers have provided 2,500+ doses more than expected over the last three months,\u201d she wrote in a text message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend seems to echo nationwide. A recent poll from the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Annenberg Public Policy Center<\/a> found that 83% of Americans say the benefits of the MMR vaccine for children outweigh any potential or perceived risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masters said that vaccinations aren\u2019t the only way to slow down an outbreak. As an outbreak progresses, word of it spreads, and people who have symptoms may stay home more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outbreak in Texas is showing signs of slowing, with fewer measles cases reported in the past three weeks than in any three-week period going back to near the start of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services<\/a> reported 722 confirmed measles cases. This is an increase of four since the last update on Friday, and an increase of five since May 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two young girls in West Texas have died<\/a> from measles, further prompting parents like Gail Shooter, 38, of Lubbock, to get her son, Connor, his second MMR shot ahead of schedule, just after his second birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids \u201cdied at the hospital where my babies were born,\u201d Shooter said. \u201cIt\u2019s very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kala Hunter did not hesitate to get her 2-year-old son, Brady, fully vaccinated in March as the number of measles cases grew in her West Texas community. \u201cBeing in the hotbed of the measles outbreak,\u201d said Hunter, 47, of Lubbock, \u201cit was a no-brainer. If it was safe to get him vaccinated early, we were going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":42579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[1958,1831,1809,1429],"class_list":["post-42578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-epidemic","tag-measles","tag-vaccination","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42580,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42578\/revisions\/42580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}