As the measles epidemic extends to Western Texas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of health and human services, shouted on Tuesday several unusual remedies, including the Gadu liver, but again does not encourage Americans to be vaccinated.
In a predetermined interview with Fox News, Mr Kennedy said the federal government was shipping doses of vitamin A in Gaines County, the focus of the Estonia and helping to organize ambulance rides.
HHS officials previously said they were sending doses of the measles-Arsenic-Rubella vaccine to Texas, but Mr Kennedy did not discuss the vaccination.
Texas doctors had seen “very good results,” Mr Kennedy said, facing cases of measles with steroids, Budesonide. an antibiotic called clarithromycin. and Gadu liver oil, which said it had high levels of vitamin A and vitamin D.
While doctors sometimes administer doses of vitamin A for the treatment of children with severe measles cases, the garden liver oil is “in no way” a treatment based on evidence, said Dr. Sean O’Leary, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. O’Leary added that he had never heard of a doctor using the measles supplement.
In comments that appeared to refer to conventional measures against measles, Mr Kennedy said: “We will be honest with the American people for the first time in history about what really – for all the tests and all the studies, what we know, what we do not know.”
“We will tell them, and this will remember some people who want an ideological approach to public health.”
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Tuesday that it will send some of his “Disease Detectives” in Texas to help strengthen the attempt to turn the virus back.
The epidemic shows no signs of deceleration, according to figures published Tuesday by state officials.
The Texas Ministry of Health said that by the end of January, nearly 160 people have been in measles – 20 additional cases than reported on Friday – and 22 have been hospitalized.
The news comes amid federal officials criticism of the derogatory need for measles-rubella vaccine, one of the most important tools to eliminate a fireplace.
The dimensions of the epidemic, which has already killed a child, are unclear. The official number of the case in the Texas outburst is probably a submarine, said Katherine Wells, Public Health Director in Lubbock, Texas.
The outburst has spread largely to a Mennonites community in Gaines County, which historically had lower vaccination rates and often avoid interacting with the healthcare system.
Mrs Wells said she believed that many of these families did not apply for medical care for measles and were not taken into account in the official state numbers.
“I think it’s probably in hundreds,” he said. “We know that some of their schools were closed with many sick children, but we don’t know who these kids were.”
Last year, about 82 % of the population of the Kindergarten in the county had received the measles vaccine. Experts say that at least 95 % of people in a community need to be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks.
Reduced vaccination rates in the United States have left the developing pockets of vulnerable children, making it more likely that an outburst will switch from an unpaid group to another.
Only 93 % of kindergarten students at national level had received the measles, mumps and red vaccine in the school year 2023-24, from 95 % before the pandemic.
“We have benefited very much as Americans from the fact that these communities have been placed outside,” said Michael Mina, a specialist vaccine and former Epidemiology professor at Harvard Th Chan School of Public Health.
“A case in one of them can ignite cases in all of them because it no longer benefits from this space,” he said.
In Texas, measles cases have been confirmed in nine counties, many of which have vaccination rates under federal recommendations.
About 80 % of kindergarten students in one of the public school areas in Terry County, which the neighbors gaines were vaccinated for measles, according to recent state data. This county reported 22 cases of measles on Tuesday.
A county in New Mexico bordering Gaines County has reported nine cases of measles.
While measles are resolved within a few weeks, in rare cases the virus can cause pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially children, get oxygen to their lungs or brain edema, which can lead to blindness, deafness.
About one in five people caught measles will be hospitalized, according to CDC
The virus also weakens the immune system in the long run, making its host more sensitive to future infections. A 2015 study found that before the MMR vaccine was widely available, measles may have been responsible for half of all deaths from infectious diseases in children.
Sheryl gay stolberg They contributed reports.
