With measles making a comeback, Colorado vaccination rates are “an accident waiting to happen”

Measles is making a comeback around the world and in the United States. And not enough Coloradans, especially young people, are vaccinated against it to prevent the disease from hitting the state with a vengeance.

“We’re an accident waiting to happen,” said Susan Lontine, executive director of Immunize Colorado, an organization that works to protect Coloradans from vaccine-preventable diseases. “I mean, we thought we had eradicated all of these things.”

A major warning signal: Only 88 percent of kindergarten children have received the MMR vaccination, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. This is according to the latest data from the state health ministry.

Although this number has increased from last year, a percentage above 95 percent is considered ideal to ensure the protection of the community.

The numbers are better, nearly 94 percent, when you include all school children in Colorado from preschool through 12th grade.

Lontine fears that the successful vaccination efforts of the past few decades are now being taken for granted. “We are in some ways victims of our own success, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be vigilant,” said Lontine, a former state legislator. “They (the public) don’t understand how serious the situation really is.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles outbreaks have increased sharply nationwide this year compared to 2023. Cases have been reported in nearly half of all states. In more than eight out of 10 cases, the patient was unvaccinated. Nearly half of the cases involved children under 5 years of age.

Families are urged to get vaccinated.

Measles can cause serious health complications, especially in children under 5 years old. The disease is transmitted through the air and can remain in the air we breathe indoors for up to two hours. If one person is infected, up to 9 out of 10 people nearby will be infected if they are not protected.

“It can spread like wildfire,” said Heather Roth, director of immunization for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “People don’t understand how contagious measles can be.”

Measles can cause a rash, high fever (possibly over 104 degrees), cough, runny nose, and watery, watery eyes. In the worst cases, it can lead to respiratory arrest and death. According to the CDC, one to three out of 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurological complications, even with the best modern medical care.

Perhaps what concerns Colorado most is that in some areas, especially rural and underserved communities, vaccination rates are above 70 or 60 percent, well below so-called herd immunity.

“All across Colorado, there are daycares in communities where infection rates are much lower,” Roth said. “When that vulnerability exists, communities are vulnerable to outbreaks.”

Many factors contribute to this situation, including the vaccine desert, which overlaps with areas where people often lack healthcare and do not have access to a primary care doctor or pediatrician.

“It’s an access barrier, a transportation barrier,” Roth said. “We have a lot of people who don’t trust the health care system. They haven’t had a good experience with the health care system, so they don’t access it and often don’t know what’s available to them, for example in terms of free vaccinations.”

Measles can also be difficult for many schools and communities to manage. If an outbreak occurs in a school or daycare, children who are not protected may have to stay home for at least 21 days, disrupting both school and parents’ schedules.

The state and several groups want to improve rates with a multi-pronged approach that includes a program of mobile public health clinics.

Families can find a free or low-cost vaccine provider by searching on a state website. A CDPHE vaccination data dashboard provides data reported annually to the agency by each licensed child care center, school or district.

In April, CDPHE sent text and email messages to about 75,000 families whose children may have been overdue for the MMR vaccine, according to state immunization records. This had an impact and resulted in nearly 6,000 vaccinations. CDPHE is sending about 72,000 reminder postcards this month.

The agency is also currently launching a bilingual education campaign to encourage families to make sure their children are “stronger than measles” with the MMR vaccine and other routine childhood immunizations. The website also tells families where they can get free or low-cost vaccines.

State law requires all students attending school or licensed child care facilities to receive certain vaccinations, including the MMR vaccine, unless an exemption is requested.

A story from her family history touches Lontine deeply.

Her grandfather came from a large ranching family in Montana. His parents had 17 children. During a visit to a cemetery, Lontine found several family members who had died from a disease that is now preventable through vaccination.

“I noticed gravestones of many of my grandfather’s siblings, and three of them died around the same time,” she said. “They had all died of whooping cough in the early 1900s. Yes, we don’t want to see that anymore, and we can prevent it.”