Measles severity underestimated as outbreak continues

Women who hope to become pregnant are being advised to be vaccinated for measles beforehand, since it’s not safe to be vaccinated during pregnancy and the consequences of measles can be very serious for mom and baby.

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday held a media briefing to sound the alarm about an ongoing outbreak of measles that has reached into nearly every corner of the Beehive State. Since June 2025, Utah has had 358 confirmed cases, 120 of those individuals have gone to the emergency room and 31 had to be hospitalized, including three so ill they wound up in intensive care.

“Happily, I do not have to say at this point that we’ve had anybody die of measles,” state epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen told reporters, noting that could change with continued spread of the highly contagious viral illness.

She said people who have gotten measles — and providers who are in some cases seeing it up close for the first time because it was once largely eradicated — keep telling her “that measles is so much worse than what they expected. It is not a mild infection, it is not a mild virus, it is severe illness.”

Nolen told Deseret News that pregnant women have a special vulnerability. The vaccine is not given while they’re pregnant. And if they get measles during pregnancy, there’s a “fairly high risk” of losing the pregnancy. If they get measles shortly before delivery, the baby can contract measles and “babies do not do well with measles,” she said — including from complications of high fever, which is a hallmark of measles and can harm an infant’s brain.

Besides pregnant women, those at especially high risk include infants, caregivers and others who cannot be vaccinated, including some who are immunocompromised.

Amanda Jocelyn, a nurse practitioner who specializes in pediatrics in southern Utah, which has been especially hard hit in this outbreak, described what she has seen from a clinical point of view, noting people seem to underestimate how sick measles can make someone.

Jocelyn said she knew about measles and tried to prepare for if and when she saw it, but until the past few months she had never actually encountered a case. She’s now seen many. While many viruses are self-limiting, she said, measles can be very severe.

“The children I am seeing in clinic who have measles are very, very ill. And in several cases, their parents and their caregivers get ill as well,” Jocelyn said.

Among common symptoms she described are very high fevers of 103 to 105 degrees that last up to a week, severe coughing that causes hypoxemia requiring supplemental oxygen and some cases of pneumonia. She’s also seen severe complications, including a case “where the bone marrow kind of shuts down red blood cell production” leading to severe anemia and a hard recovery. A healthy young mother she treated developed measles-induced liver inflammation that put her in intensive care, Jocelyn said. Severe complications can happen “even in otherwise healthy individuals.”

What to do if you’re exposed

Nolen said notable spread has occurred at school events, including wrestling, drill team and basketball. “So we encourage people if they or their children are not vaccinated to have their child vaccinated against measles. It is at this time a real threat in our state and something we can do to stop it.”

Nolen and Jocelyn tell people to get medical care if they need it, but to call ahead so precautions can be taken to ensure people who see the same health care provider are not inadvertently exposed. Measles virus lingers in the air for a couple of hours, so people can literally walk through it and be infected.

A time-tested vaccine

The best protection remains the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, Nolen said, noting it has been “used for decades.” Anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated or is partially vaccinated should take that step, she said. Someone who had measles — likely the majority of people born before 1960 — is already protected.

Nolen also noted that because of the ongoing and serious outbreak, there’s a slight change to the advice on vaccinating babies. Usually children get vaccinated at around 1 year, with a second dose around age 4. But as long as a baby is at least 6 months old, the vaccine can be given, so those parents are encouraged to talk to their child’s doctor about it.

And babies and little kids can get their second dose just a month after their first dose. “There’s actually not a really good reason that they need to wait until they’re 4,” Nolen said.

She emphasized the vaccine is “the best protection that we have.” Most of the Utah cases are people who have not been vaccinated, though 8% to 10% of the cases were people who had at least one dose of the MMR vaccine. While noting there’s “no such thing as a perfect vaccine,” she said those who’ve been vaccinated and do get measles have milder symptoms.

Anyone who is exposed to measles is advised to stay home for 21 days. Measles in the early stages can resemble a cold or other respiratory illness and because it’s so spreadable, precautions should be taken, she said.