NPR’s Adrian Florido speaks with Dr. Ron Prepare dinner of Lubbock, Texas, in regards to the measles outbreak in his state – and what the Lubbock Well being Division is doing to attempt to management it.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Rural northwest Texas is filled with rolling plains and exquisite, extensive open skies. It is also the place officers are racing to include a quickly spreading outbreak of measles. Many of the state’s almost 150 confirmed circumstances have come from this area. On Wednesday, Texas officers introduced the outbreak had claimed its first life, a toddler who was unvaccinated and was being handled at a hospital within the space’s largest metropolis, Lubbock. We have reached Dr. Ron Prepare dinner. He is a household doctor and likewise the highest medical officer in Lubbock. He is serving to lead the general public well being response. Whats up, Dr. Prepare dinner.
RON COOK: Whats up.
FLORIDO: Dr. Prepare dinner, why is measles spreading within the communities close to the place you reside?
COOK: That is a largely unvaccinated neighborhood over there by selection. It is about an hour and a half away from us. And so measles is so infectious, it could actually actually ravage by way of a inhabitants that is not vaccinated.
FLORIDO: The epicenter of this outbreak is in Gaines County. I feel that is the place you are referring to.
COOK: Sure, Gaines County.
FLORIDO: Are you able to inform us a few of the issues that you just and different well being officers have been doing to attempt to include this outbreak?
COOK: Nicely, numerous schooling, after all. We have additionally supplied an enormous – what we name an emergency response bus, a 15-passenger bus that is arrange like an enormous transportable clinic to present out vaccines, to do free testing and free vaccines and plenty of schooling in the neighborhood making an attempt to get individuals to grasp that this can be a very protected vaccine to take after which issues to do to be able to assist stop the unfold of the illness additional.
FLORIDO: And what makes containing an outbreak so onerous?
COOK: It is so virulent and so infectious that the issue comes – if you happen to’re not vaccinated – so we put 100 individuals in a room, 90-plus individuals can be contaminated with this virus. You’re taking flu, for instance – you place 100 individuals in a room, one or two different individuals round you in the identical period of time can be contaminated. On this case, 80-plus, 90-plus % of these individuals can be contaminated. It simply spreads quickly.
FLORIDO: Measles was declared eradicated within the U.S. a quarter-century in the past, Dr. Prepare dinner, due to widespread vaccination. As you have famous, in these communities the place the outbreak is spreading, a whole lot of people aren’t vaccinated. There’s much more skepticism about vaccines proper now, a whole lot of that being fueled by officers on the very high of our authorities. Did you ever think about you would be making an attempt to handle a measles outbreak of this scale?
COOK: No. You recognize, this can be a very protected vaccine. You recognize, there’s some affiliation thought that it triggered autism. That has been disproven and positively disinformation about this vaccine. It has been disproven time and again. You recognize, this hearkens again to COVID days, and I feel this – that is what it feels to us, the general public well being individuals making an attempt to cease the illness. And I feel due to COVID, we have had extra vaccine hesitancy, so we’re seeing actually a surge in flu. We’re actually seeing one other surge in COVID. We’re seeing surges of pertussis, which is the very best it has been in 9 years. All these are vaccine-preventable ailments. And so we’re seeing an increase in all of these, and it actually makes us nervous.
FLORIDO: How do you overcome a few of these points? How do you persuade individuals to get vaccinated?
COOK: Simply tons and plenty of schooling, making an attempt to get individuals vaccinated – we’re seeing actually a much bigger uptake in ensuring all people has their measles vaccine updated, so we have had numerous luck doing that. We have seen even in that neighborhood that is been considerably vaccine-hesitant. Particularly as of, you already know, unlucky – our unlucky dying that we had, they’re seeing how extreme it may be. And that is what I need emphasizes is, what we do not predict and might’t predict is who’s going to do worse in the event that they get the illness, and it could be your little one.
FLORIDO: I perceive you’ve gotten a 10-month outdated granddaughter.
COOK: I do. I do.
FLORIDO: Are you anxious about her?
COOK: I’m anxious about her. In reality, her pediatrician gave her an early dose of the vaccine yesterday – not on my account, however as a result of the pediatrician was additionally involved.
FLORIDO: How lengthy would possibly it take to get this outbreak beneath management in your communities, Dr. Prepare dinner?
COOK: It should smolder for some time. You recognize, it is – luckily, the larger cities like Lubbock have a fairly excessive vaccination price, so it will decelerate. There’ll nonetheless be circumstances of it prop up. We have already had two in our personal metropolis from an publicity. There are individuals that can’t take the vaccine as a result of they’re immunocompromised or someone that is youthful than six months. These people cannot take the vaccine, and we do not need these people sick. And so it may smolder, I feel, for the following a number of months.
FLORIDO: I have been talking with Dr. Ron Prepare dinner, the Lubbock well being authority and chief well being officer on the Texas Tech College Well being Sciences Heart. Thanks a lot for becoming a member of us.
COOK: My pleasure, Adrian.
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content might not be in its remaining type and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability might fluctuate. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
