Dr. Leila Mirk had only read about measles at a medical school, before a girl with The Telltale Rash appeared in her emergency room in Western Texas in late January.
The child who had no immunity to the highly contagious disease but had a major respiratory condition will become one of the first known cases in the Gaines County, the epicenter of the largest hearth in the nation, for six years. Nearly 160 famous people have been infected since then, including 22 people who have been hospitalized. And last week, a child at a school age without basic conditions died, marking the first death of measles for a decade. The outbreak, distributed in rural counties, and is now suspected that it caused a hearth near New Mexico.
Mirk, a 38-year-old doctor of family medicine and obstetrics in the tiny city of Seminol, looked at the medical texts to learn more about the disease, once he thought it was approaching in the United States now, it was treated for almost a dozen cases and counts. In a little over a month, the village doctor has become one of the only doctors in the nation with first -hand experience about how infectious and serious the measles is. And she is an undesirable disease expert she never thought she would cure.
“Now we literally see when you are not vaccinating, it happens,” Mirk said.
As the vaccination rate has dropped in the United States, doctors and health officers across the country are rethinking preventive diseases such as measles that have not been observed over generations.
The United States has announced measles eliminated in 2000, but US immunization rates have decreased in schools – which usually require vaccines for attendance – below 95% of the threshold of a flock needed to prevent outbreaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers. Drops are attributed to distrust and misinformation around public health and vaccination, which have led to an increase in medical or religious exceptions.
“Measles is the tip of the iceberg,” says Dr. Daniel Curitskes, Head of the Infectious Diseases Department in Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor at Harvard Medical University. “There are other diseases that can be repeated, which can also have catastrophic consequences.”
In Gaines County, just over 80% kindergartens were vaccinated against measles in the last school year. In the county, Loop Independent School District with about 150 students had less than half of the students vaccinated.
As of Tuesday, over 100 of the 159 Texas cases were in Gaines County. Most cases are in children, mainly among those who are at school. All except five cases were among people who were not vaccinated or did not have some vaccination status.
Dr. Leila Mirk, a doctor of family medicine and obstetrics in Seminol, Texas, has been on the first line of the largest outburst of measles in the country for six years.
From Atlanta to the health of rural areas
Five years ago, Mirk moved from his hometown of Atlanta – after studying at the Emori Medical School and winning a doctoral degree in neuroscience in addition to his medical degree – at Seminole, where peanuts, oil, natural gas and cotton dominate the plains of Texas. Instead of known Atlanta research institutions, including the CDC headquarters, Mirik seeks to practice treatment of families as a rural doctor. She moved her family to Seminol, a population of 7,231, where she liked diversity. It is a mix of white, Mexican and menonite families and sits about 80 miles southwest of Lubbock.
She and her husband raise two children aged 5 and 8 years of age who attend local schools. Her beds live on the other side of the street. Seminole is like a village, she said. People take care of each other and their children.
Her journey to work is a 3-minute driving with a traffic light-a deliberate one that she doesn’t even bother to turn on the radio. At the local grocery store, people stop it in the paths with medical issues. She urges them to schedule a meeting so that she can look at them.
Prior to the outbreak, Mirk heard many concerns about vaccines, including in the Gaines Menonite Community, where measles first appeared in late January. At the Family Clinic, the parents told Mirk that no one had measles anymore, so no need to vaccinate our children. And it only caused a mild illness, they said. Others claim that vaccines cause harm despite the vaccine showing decades of safety. As their family doctor, she recommended that they receive a vaccine that is safe and effective.
Hesitation, misinformation of measles vaccine
Such allegations have helped to allow measles to return with force. Health experts cite statements made by the Minister of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has previously been advocated against the measles vaccine for years and is contrary to the guidelines of his own health agencies.
In the present outbreak, Kennedy downplayed the measles outbreaks and the severity of the disease and made incorrect statements about the current outbreak, said Dr. Richard Beser, a former CDC, who is now president and CEO Robert Wood Johnson. A recent option of Kennedy urged parents to consult health providers about vaccination, adding the vaccination solution is “personal”.
“We have so many conditions here, so many preventives that we will see to return, because we have some leaders who do not believe in science,” Bessor said.
Pediatricians and family doctors now need to learn about illnesses transferred to history, a berry added. They must ensure that they know how measles, polio and various types of meningitis look like. They also need to understand the isolation protocols for these diseases.
About a fifth of unvaccinated people who become infected with measles are hospitalized. Children who contract measles can develop pneumonia, the most common cause of measles death or brain inflammation, which can lead to hearing loss or developmental delay. Death occurs at about 1 to 3 in 1000 infected children.
The best protection against measles so far is vaccination, said Bessor, a trained pediatrician. The full two -dose series, administered for the first time at the age of about a year, is 97% effective against measles. Only one shot provides 93% protection.
Measles is highly infectious, spread by contact with droplets, released from cough, sneezing or speaking. Measles can remain in a room or on surfaces two hours after leaving a sick person. An infected person can infect 18 others around them that are not immunized.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., appeals to a cabinet meeting held by President Donald Trump in the White House on February 26, 2025.
With the diagnosis of measles time is crucial
Fever, cough or rash can be different different problems. But doctors cannot afford to miss the diagnosis of measles, said Dr. James Cutrell, an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Considering how contagious measles is, he said, the importance of identifying him early to isolate the patient, testing them and confirming whether it is measles is crucial to stopping distribution. Another concern is that the symptoms usually develop a week or two after the exposure. People can spread measles even when they do not show symptoms.
Mirk saw this firsthand. At the end of January, the infected girl arrived in the emergency room with a major respiratory condition, which puts her at an increased risk of the potentially deadly virus. After an emergency doctor diagnosed her measles, Mirk went to her medical texts to look for the disease to treat the girl.
She recalled spots, red spots covering the girl’s body from head to toe. The child is placed isolated, with hospital staff in full dresses and masks. During the stay of the child, her rash changed to the smaller red spots. Mirk thought she would be the only case.
Dr. Leila Mirk, a doctor of family medicine and obstetrics in Seminol, Texas, treats one of the first known cases of measles in a continuing outbreak, which has been the biggest in the United States in six years.
“We have taken all the precautions to try to restrain it and keep it isolated only on this patient,” she said. “And it didn’t work. It didn’t work at all. “
Initially, the hearth focused on the menonite community in the region, which was insufficiently vaccinated with entire families. Mirk and employees have seen cases among Latin American babies, too young to be vaccinated, but face serious illnesses. Pregnant women who are at a special risk of miscarriage or premature birth from infection are also at risk.
It expects more cases in the community. Many families call describing the symptoms of measles, but they will not be tested and will not receive treatment unless infections worsen.
Outside Gaines, the hearth has spread to eight other counties, with exhibitions hundreds of kilometers in and around San Antonio. Officials in New Mexico suspect that their outbreak among nine people is infected is associated with the outbreak of Texas right through the state lines.
Reading Masters Testing signs is seen as a hearth in Gaines, Texas, has sparked concerns about its distribution in other parts of the state, in Seminol, Texas, USA, February 25, 2025.
“Hope and Prayer” will not end the epidemic
Beyond Texas and New Mexico, the nearby states have much lower vaccination rates than the immunity of a flock needed to prevent outbreaks. For comparison, Texas and New Mexico had a rating of two -dose vaccination rates among kindergartens respectively 94.3% and 95% respectively. But the surrounding countries – including Arizona, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma – had a rate of immunization below 90%, according to CDC data from last school year.
“Hope and prayer not only make him disappear,” says Dr. Kisha Davis, a member of the Board of the American Academy of Family Doctors and a Health Officer in Maryland. Her Montgomery County Health Department saw a case of measles a year ago in an unvaccinated man. Thanks to the high immunization rates, no hearth appeared, she said. “We must continue to be vigilant.”
In Seminole a wooden sign is the “measles testing” against the local health department. In addition to the tests, officials are expanding the vaccination sites. More people are showing up to vaccinate, including those who have ever sworn from the shots, said Mirk, who recently became Chief Medical Officer at City Hospital. Others still do not believe in vaccines.
Mirk said her children were worried about catching measles. Their classmates have become infected with the disease, and her children are afraid of getting a rash. Both her children are vaccinated, she reminds them. You don’t have to be afraid.
This article originally appeared in USA Today: Texas Merles Expreed: Young Doctor quickly become a nation expert