The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed around 300 cases of measles across more than a dozen states including Texas and New Mexico, and public health departments across Montana are preparing in case the highly contagious virus reaches the state.
While no cases of measles have been identified in Montana or its neighboring states, public health officials say they’re taking steps to prepare.
According to the Montana Department of Public of Health and Human Services and public health physician Maggie Cook-Shimanek, that means communicating with county and Tribal health departments, offering support to local governments and encouraging vaccination, which she says is effective in protecting against measles and stopping its spread after an initial outbreak.
“This is a highly infectious disease,” said Cook-Shimanek. “This is also a disease, however, that we haven’t seen in the U.S. consistently for a very long time, so it’s important that we are exercising policies and procedures at all levels.”
The virus may start with common symptoms like a cough, fever and a runny nose before a person develops a rash. Public health officials say vaccination is the best way to protect against it.
According to the CDC, measles was declared eliminated domestically more than two decades ago in 2000. Now, a much smaller number of outbreaks are identified most frequently with travel to other countries where outbreaks are a problem.
The role of travel in recent outbreaks, a decline in vaccination rates nationwide and both the severity and high transmission of measles mean public health officials in communities like Yellowstone and Gallatin Counties are making an effort to keep local medical providers updated about protocol if they do identify or suspect a case of measles.
“Measles is one of the few conditions where we want to be immediately looped in,” said Gallatin City-County Health Department Communicable Disease Specialist Heather Demorest.
Officials say identifying patients who could spread measles and notifying public health officials is a big part of minimizing impacts.
Yellowstone and Gallatin County health officials also say it’s challenging to get a sense of vaccination rates.
A map on the CDC website shows each state’s estimated vaccination rates among kindergarteners for measles, mumps and rubella with the exception of Montana. That’s because Montana is currently the only state not submitting that kind of data through the collection of school vaccination information that was previously a requirement.
Demorest says available data from local agencies and national collection indicates a decline in vaccine rates in Gallatin County, but also leaves them with a potentially inaccurate snapshot of immunity.
“We did receive county level data recently, but it’s tricky,” she said.
Lawmakers in 2021 passed a law prohibiting the state from requiring that information with the intention of protecting privacy rights and preventing discrimination. Recent efforts to overturn or change the law have been unsuccessful. Some public health officials say the policy makes it harder for them to get a full picture of their community’s vaccination rate and protection against viruses like measles.
Yellowstone County Deputy Public Health Officer Megan Littlefield says the data they do have access to is just not as thorough.
“We had a lot better data on schools when it was required,” she said.
She says existing data suggests Yellowstone County reflects a nationwide downward trend in vaccination, whether because of lapsed medical visits, vaccine hesitancy or other reasons.
“Some of the data we don’t have the details on is there’s vaccine hesitation towards COVID vaccines or influenza, and then there’s vaccine hesitancy to sort of the traditional vaccinations that have been required for entry into school, and so we haven’t fully teased out that data,” she said.
Public health officials say vaccines are the best way to protect against measles, which can cause severe illness and hospitalization.
Children receive two doses spaced out in early childhood, and public officials recommend both children and adults get vaccinated before traveling to countries with measles outbreaks unless already recently up to date.
