Surges in Mennonite communities near the U.S. border may complicate containment efforts, experts say.
As the United States struggles to contain a resurgence of measles that has swept through swaths of the Southwest, neighboring countries are responding to their own outbreaks.
Canada has reported more than 730 cases this year, making this one of the worst measles outbreaks in the country since it declared the virus “eliminated” in 1998. Mexico has seen at least 360 measles cases and one death, most of them in the northern state of Chihuahua, according to Mexican health authorities.
Many of the communities grappling with measles have large Mennonite populations that public health officials have linked to outbreaks. The multinational resurgence has concerned epidemiologists, who fear that simultaneous outbreaks near the U.S. border will make it more difficult to contain the virus.
“It’s just a line on the map that separates them — we share air, we share space,” said Lisa Lee, an epidemiologist at Virginia Tech.
Falling vaccination rates have left the United States more vulnerable to the highly contagious virus, she added. “If we don’t have a buffer or herd immunity to keep the virus out,” she said, “we will be at risk as long as any of our neighbors are at risk.”
The outbreak in the Southwest shows no signs of slowing. Since late January, the virus has sickened more than 560 people in Texas, 63 people in neighboring New Mexico, and a dozen people in Oklahoma.
