Measles fears in Texas cause flood of parents to seek vaccine causing vaccination rates to skyrocket
New data from the Electronic Health Record data analysis company Truveta has documented the surge, finding that the percentage of six-month-old children in Texas who got their shots in April increased by more than 30 times over last year's average. For 10-month-olds, the percentage increased by more than 10 times. The preliminary research findings have not been peer-reviewed.
'Our data show that starting in February 2025 and accelerating in March and April with the issuance of CDC's Health Alert Network about measles transmission on March 7, 2025, Texas parents are taking advantage of the early vaccine recommendation,' the company said in a news release alongside their findings. 'These results highlight that the outbreak is causing real concern for parents and changing vaccination behavior.'
'This is a huge increase,' Nina Masters, a senior scientist at Truveta and part of the research team, told NBC News. 'Just a really striking signal that vaccination behavior is changing.'
In the months leading up to the outbreak fewer than 2 percent of Texas babies under a year old were vaccinated. Now, that figure has jumped to around 10 percent by the time the child reaches 10 months old.
The analysis found that in more than 20 percent of all first measles vaccines in March and April were given to children between the ages of six and 11 months old: 11.5-times higher percentage than in 2019 during domestic outbreaks.
The Texas Department of State Health Services told The Independent that it had data from the state's immunization registry showing a similar trend year over year.
Lubbock's Kaia Hunter was one of the parents who took her child to get the shot. She told NBC News that she did not hesitate to get her 2-year-old son, Brady, fully vaccinated in March.
'Being in the hotbed of the measles outbreak,' said Hunter, 47, 'it was a no-brainer. If it was safe to get him vaccinated early, we were going to protect him.'
The news comes amid falling child vaccination rates across the U.S., which have been tied to increasing vaccine hesitancy, the spread of misinformation about vaccine safety, and partisan divisions following the Covid pandemic.
In the Lone Star State specifically, vaccine exemptions have been linked to the county with the largest number of infections. Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience. That includes religious beliefs.
Still, the safety and efficacy of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been established. The two-dose series is 97 percent effective against measles, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's the way to prevent infection, experts say. In Texas, the two children who died in the outbreak were unvaccinated.
An unvaccinated adult also died in New Mexico, and there have been more than 1,000 cases and 14 outbreaks reported across the country this year. As of last week, the U.S. was just short of the century's high mark of 1,274 in 2019, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The group said U.S. cases are likely undercounted. Although, the number of new cases reported in Texas each week has fallen since the beginning of the month.
Across the U.S., about 96 percent of measles cases this year have been among people who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status, according to the CDC.
But, efforts to get people vaccinated have also hurdles from the nation's top health officials. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said he supports getting vaccinated – but also pushed worrying treatments for measles. Recently, he has falsely claimed that the measles vaccine contains 'aborted fetus debris' and said the mumps vaccination does not work.
Remarks from the administration have frustrated physicians who recently said that the nation is 'reaching a breaking point' in its ability to control the measles outbreak.
'It is critical that Congress ensure that the federal government provides the resources necessary for state and local governments and non-governmental organizations to prevent measles infections through access to vaccines, and that these entities have the tools they need to effectively respond to the outbreak,' AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders.
'Even one child dying from measles is one too many,' Dr. Kressly wrote. 'What makes these deaths so tragic is that immunization could have prevented these deaths.'
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