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Public health officials across California are trying to find Amtrak train and bus passengers who might have been exposed to measles. They're following up after someone who traveled extensively throughout the state via Amtrak was hospitalized with measles. KQED's April Dembosky reports from the train station in Emeryville, California.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN HORN)
APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE: Jake Crawford has family in Anaheim and Oakland, and he's been riding the train back and forth a lot lately.
JAKE CRAWFORD: Especially with the gas prices.
DEMBOSKY: When he heard on the news that a person traveling the same route as his was sick with measles, he was frustrated.
CRAWFORD: Like, oh, man. Now I got to be aware of something we were done with. It's back on the radar.
DEMBOSKY: The U.S. considered measles eradicated in 2000. But as vaccination rates have fallen in recent years, measles outbreaks have returned, most recently in Utah and Pennsylvania. With so many other diseases in need of attention, from cancer to HIV, Crawford says it doesn't make sense to spend public health resources chasing measles infections.
CRAWFORD: To now battle something that we already got rid of is just asinine, just dumb.
DEMBOSKY: Crawford is vaccinated, but he knows there's still a slim chance he can get infected. The measles virus can hang in the air of a train car for up to two hours after a sick person has coughed, sneezed or breathed in it. Among those who are not vaccinated, it infects 9 out of ten people who are exposed.
NICHOLAS MOSS: And all of a sudden, boom. You have these very large outbreaks that we've seen in other parts of the country - so far not yet in California.
DEMBOSKY: Dr. Nicholas Moss is the health officer in Alameda County. When his department learns of a measles case, staff act quickly and quietly to contain the spread.
MOSS: But in this case, we just have no way to know who was on those trains.
DEMBOSKY: Local vaccination rates are high. But Moss wonders if the U.S. is returning to a 1957 pre-vaccine era with measles sweeping through communities, infecting everyone who's not immune.
MOSS: I didn't see measles when I was in training.
DEMBOSKY: He's never been at the bedside of a child horribly sick with lung or brain complications from measles.
MOSS: But people working in hospitals today are going to see it, and families may, unfortunately, get to see it. And at some point, people are going to realize that there's real benefit to not getting measles.
DEMBOSKY: Moss says, until immunity levels get higher, alerts of new measles exposures may be the new reality.
For NPR News, I'm April Dembosky in Emeryville. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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