Thursday evening, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) confirmed five cases of measles here in Gallatin County.
"I want people to take the risk of this seriously. Like I said before, measles is the most contagious infection in the world," says Peter Bulger, medical director of the county health department and an infectious disease doctor for Bozeman Health.
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"It can lead to severe illness, hospitalization, permanent disability in the form of brain damage, and death, particularly amongst children—in pretty high rates when you compare it to other diseases," he says.
The five new cases are the first to be recorded in Montana since the 1990s, prompting me to ask the health department’s Lori Christenson—how has it come back?
"MMR vaccination rates have declined over the years. Luckily, we do have higher rates in our 13 to 17-year-olds in Montana; that’s above nationwide averages. However, we have lower vaccination rates in our younger populations than nationwide data," says Christenson.
Bulger tells me that the MMR vaccine had essentially eradicated measles from the U.S. after it was rolled out in the 60s. And since then, it has had a decades-long track record of being highly safe and effective.
"If you’ve had two shots of the MMR vaccine anytime in your life, you are fully vaccinated. You have excellent immunity, 97% protection against infection. This is one of our most successful and strongest vaccines that we have," says Bulger.
But despite how contagious it is, Bulger says they are confident in preventing a COVID-level outbreak, thanks to high rates of already vaccinated people.
"When we were dealing with COVID, we had a population that was 100% susceptible to that virus. Nobody has immunity to it, so we were all susceptible to infection. That’s not the case with measles; we have pretty good rates of vaccination throughout our population," he says.
Visit the Healthy Gallatin website for more information, and if you suspect you have measles, hospitals ask that you call ahead.
