A Texas Health Authority warns against ‘Masels parties’ as the outbreak in West Texas grew to at least 146 cases, with 20 hospitalization and one unauthorized child of school hours. The outbreak is still mainly in children who are not vaccinated.

In a press briefing hosted by City of Lubbock, Texas, Ron Cook, chief health officer at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, presented a serious warning to Texans in his opening statements.

“What I want you to hear is: It is not good to have masels parties, because what can happen is – we cannot predict who will do it badly with measles, be admitted to hospital, can get pneumonia or encephalitis and pass it,” Cook said. “So it’s a foolish idea to have a masels party. The best thing to do is make sure your well vaccinated. “

Lubbock sits about 90 kilometers northwest of the epicenter of the outbreak in Gaines County, which is one of the state’s least vaccinated provinces. This recorded 98 of the 146 cases of the outbreak. While Lubbock reported only two of the 146 cases, patients from elsewhere were treated in Lubbock. This includes the first two cases in the outbreak, as well as the child who died of the infection earlier this week, who was not a Lubbock resident.

It is unclear whether any masels parties occur in Gaines or elsewhere. “It was mostly … talk on social media,” Cook said in response to a follow -up question of ARS. He noted that Masels parties and chickenpox parties were more common practices decades ago, before vaccines were available for both diseases. But he warned again today about the dangers. “Please don’t do that. It is just folly; It plays roulette, ”he said.

Cook, along with Lubbock’s public health director, Katherine Wells, said they are not seeing an end in sight for the outbreak, which now extends nine provinces in Texas, many of which have low vaccination rates. “This outbreak will continue to grow,” Wells said, refusing to predict how high the final case can go after a reporter raised the possibility of a few hundred.

So far, 116 of the 146 cases are under the age of 18, with 46 4 or younger. Only five of the 146 were vaccinated with at least one dose of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Messages

On a more positive note, Wells reported that the outbreak of some parents of vaccine-both parents seemed to have their children vaccinated. Just yesterday in Lubbock, more than 50 children came into the city’s clinic for measles vaccines. Eleven of the children had releases for vaccines, which meant that their parents had previously been through the state process to release their child to receive routine vaccines to attend the school. “This is a very good sign; That means our message comes out there, ”Wells said.

So far in the outbreak, which broke out at the end of January, messages about the disease and the importance of vaccination have come exclusively from state and local authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only released a brief statement late Thursday, which was not sent by the agent’s press distribution list. However, it has been pointed out that “Vaccination remains the best defense against measles infection.”

At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the US health secretary and advocate against the vaccine Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Answered to a question about the outbreak and a variety of inaccurate information presented. Kennedy put the outbreak and falsely claimed it was not uncommon. “Actually, it’s an unusual year for measles in the US. As epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina noted on Bluesy, the number of US measles cases this year has already exceeded the total case scores from eight of the previous 15 years. And it’s only February.