{"id":25387,"date":"2025-04-05T09:01:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T09:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25387"},"modified":"2025-04-05T09:25:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T09:25:18","slug":"as-measles-spreads-some-doctors-see-the-virus-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25387","title":{"rendered":"As Measles Spreads, Some Doctors See the Virus for the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Providers are getting a crash course in how to recognize and treat an infection as the virus tears through Texas and New Mexico.<\/p>\n

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Until this year, Dr. Leila Myrick had never seen a case of measles.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t remember professors in medical school talking about the virus. When she saw photos of the characteristic red rash on practice board exams, she flipped back through her textbooks to figure out what it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost practicing doctors, in today\u2019s day and age, are not going to see it in real life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But in the past few months, Dr. Myrick, a family medicine doctor in Seminole, Texas, has treated about 20 people with measles. She is likely to see more cases, as a raging outbreak that has infected 481 people in Texas and killed one child continues to spread. In Texas, New Mexico and other parts of the country where cases have emerged, <\/span>health care workers like Dr. Myrick are confronting the highly contagious virus for the first time. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 607 confirmed cases<\/a> of measles in the U.S. this year \u2014 more than double the number of cases seen in all of 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe generation of physicians who are currently, for the most part, treating patients haven\u2019t actually seen what a measles case looks like other than from a textbook or a video,\u201d said Dr. Andy Lubell, chief medical officer of True North Pediatrics in Pennsylvania, where a physician diagnosed the practice\u2019s first ever measles case this March.<\/p>\n

The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000. Cases still pop up around the country each year, sometimes seeding larger outbreaks. But public health experts worry that this year, measles could become more common in more places.<\/a> The virus is spreading rapidly in some parts of the country, and vaccination rates nationwide have been falling for years.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI remember learning about measles, German measles, all these things,\u201d said Dr. Seth Coombs, a doctor at the Lovington Medical Clinic in New Mexico who saw his first measles case this year. \u201cBut you just don\u2019t see them. And so like anything, if you don\u2019t use it, you lose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measles can sometimes be hard to recognize at first, especially if a doctor doesn\u2019t think to look for it. The infection causes a telltale red rash, but it can take days to appear. Before that, someone with measles might have only a fever, cough, a runny nose and red, watery eyes \u2014 symptoms that mimic the signs of many other viral infections.<\/p>\n

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Providers are getting a crash course in how to recognize and treat an infection as the virus tears through Texas and New Mexico.Until this year, Dr. Leila Myrick had never seen a case of measles.She doesn\u2019t remember professors in medical school talking about the virus. When she saw photos of the characteristic red rash on practice board exams, she flipped back through her textbooks to figure out what it was.\u201cMost practicing doctors, in today\u2019s day and age, are not going to see it in real life,\u201d she said.But in the past few months, Dr. Myrick, a family medicine doctor in Seminole, Texas, has treated about 20 people with measles. She is likely to see more cases, as a raging outbreak that has infected 481 people in Texas and killed one child continues to spread. In Texas, New Mexico and other parts of the country where cases have emerged, health care workers like Dr. Myrick are confronting the highly contagious virus for the first time. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 607 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. this year \u2014 more than double the number of cases seen in all of 2024.\u201cThe generation of physicians who are currently, for the most part, treating patients haven\u2019t actually seen what a measles case looks like other than from a textbook or a video,\u201d said Dr. Andy Lubell, chief medical officer of True North Pediatrics in Pennsylvania, where a physician diagnosed the practice\u2019s first ever measles case this March.The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000. Cases still pop up around the country each year, sometimes seeding larger outbreaks. But public health experts worry that this year, measles could become more common in more places. The virus is spreading rapidly in some parts of the country, and vaccination rates nationwide have been falling for years.\u201cI remember learning about measles, German measles, all these things,\u201d said Dr. Seth Coombs, a doctor at the Lovington Medical Clinic in New Mexico who saw his first measles case this year. \u201cBut you just don\u2019t see them. And so like anything, if you don\u2019t use it, you lose it.\u201dMeasles can sometimes be hard to recognize at first, especially if a doctor doesn\u2019t think to look for it. The infection causes a telltale red rash, but it can take days to appear. Before that, someone with measles might have only a fever, cough, a runny nose and red, watery eyes \u2014 symptoms that mimic the signs of many other viral infections.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25389,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25390,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25387\/revisions\/25390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}