Town Officials Warn About Possible Measles Outbreak

Rehoboth town officials are urging residents to be cautious about a possible measles outbreak.

Geraldine Hamel, the town’s Public Health Nurse, told the Board of Selectmen Monday about the growing epidemic.

There have been 483 cases of measles in 20 states, including Alaska, California, Florida, Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

“As we head into April school vacation, I just want people to be able to make informed decisions as they travel,” Hamel said. Hamel said the greatest risk of getting the disease is among children under the age of four “who have the least ability to fight the infection.” “One person can infect 18 people,” Hamel noted.

One in five persons who get the measles will be hospitalized.

As many as one in 20 children who get the measles will get pneumonia.

Three out of every 1000 children will die from the pneumonia. The biggest consequence of getting measles is encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain.

Hamel said one out of every 1000 children who are not vaccinated will develop encephalitis. That swelling can lead to seizures, deafness, and cognitive and intellectual delays.

“I have one brother who is deaf because we did not have the measles vaccination when I was growing up,” Hamel noted.

The measles vaccine was approved in 1968. Hamel explained the goal at the time was to eradicate the virus by 1982.

Hamel said the consequences of getting the measles vaccine are soreness or redness at the area where the vaccine was given, a fever, a mild rash, and some pain and stiffness in the arm and leg the vaccine was (administered).

Anyone born after 1968 who received the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccination is 97 percent immune.

Anyone born before 1957 is immune because of the “highly contagious nature” of the measles, Hamel said. “If you are immune, you usually can not get it again. It is such a vicious virus that the body really builds a good defense.”

According to the World Health Organization: “In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States and, since then, imported cases of measles have been detected in the country since the disease remains endemic in many parts of the world. The United States last verified the ongoing elimination of measles in 2024. In 2023, the vaccination coverage rate for two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine among children in kindergarten in the United States was 92.7 percent.”