Child Visiting NC Diagnosed With Measles As Vaccination Rates Decline
(WFMY 2, Ben Briscoe, Madelyn Ricket) — The state health department confirmed a child visiting Guilford and Forsyth counties has the measles.
This case comes as a growing number of parents across the country and here in North Carolina decide not to vaccinate their kids for the Measles.
WFMY News 2’s Ben Briscoe dug into CDC records and found the percentage of unvaccinated kids in North Carolina has tripled over the past 15 years.
It’s gone from less than 1% in 2011 to almost 3% of students now.
Doctors said it’s those unvaccinated kids who are most at risk.
“Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases we know of,” said Dr. Loryn Dass with Cone Health.
“It can live in the air for two hours. So if someone walks into a room with measles breathing and you walk in 2 hours later, you are exposed,” said Dr. Nicholas Preziosi with Novant Health.
Doctors said measles starts with a fever and a runny nose.
The virus causes rashes across the body, attacks white blood cells, and weakens the immune system.
If untreated, it can turn deadly.
“The risk of developing what we call encephalitis or inflammation in the brain. Um, and the concern with that is that there can be permanent brain damage from that, and children can also die as a result of those complications,” said Dr. Dass.
Scary stuff, but here’s what can calm us down a little bit: kids who are vaccinated have a 97% protection rate against the measles, so they are likely to be just fine.
And that protection lasts for your entire life, so it also goes for adults who got the vaccine a long time ago.