Measles wake-up call

I was horrified to read in the Washington Post that our country “faces millions of measles cases over the next 25 years if vaccination rates for the disease drop 10 percent.” With over 800 cases already, along with 85 hospitalized and three dead, it reminds me of my own hospital stay with measles. I was a very healthy 22-year-old backpacking around Latin

America in 1976 when exposed to measles in a friendly family’s home. When I was little almost everyone got measles, one of the most contagious viruses known. Despite my parents’ efforts to have me play with any kids with measles, I’d never gotten it. This time was different. Lying flat in my hospital bed for ten days, I thought I would die from the raging fever and extreme illness.

Unlike others, I didn’t develop pneumonia or brain inflammation, but I wonder if some of my later medical conditions are due to measles. Years later, as soon as my own son was eligible for the MMR vaccine, he got it. I noticed that currently 96% of the confirmed cases are in unvaccinated people. An epidemiologist and expert in measles, Dr. Michael Mina, wrote in The New York Times, “A single case can cause dozens more in places where people are unvaccinated.” Our own State Health Officer, Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, says, “I’m worried that some data show that Washington kindergartners have lower rates of MMR coverage than Texas or New Mexico – both of which are struggling with a measles outbreak.”

I hope parents in our community heed these warnings.

Wendy Feltham
Port Townsend