PUBLIC HEALTHWith Crumbling Public Health Infrastructure, Rural Texas Scrambles to Respond to Measles
The measles outbreak in rural Texas has exposed how hospital buildings are ill-equipped. Meanwhile, long distances between providers makes testing people and transporting samples difficult.
Five years ago, Melanie Richburg used a roll of duct tape, a HEPA filter and a portable fan to draw contaminated air out of a hospital room where patients were tested for the coronavirus.
Now, as the state’s largest measles outbreak in three decades sickens an increasing number of Texans in the South Plains region, the Lynn County Hospital District, where Richburg serves as the chief executive officer, is still without specialized isolation rooms to treat patients.
So, she’s prepared to bring out the duct tape again.
“If we see the volume of patients exceeds the number of beds available at children’s hospitals, we’re going to need a contingency plan,” said Richburg, whose county is 30 miles south of Lubbock and has had two measles cases. “The biggest struggle we have is the same struggle we had during COVID.”
The coronavirus pandemic underscored the need for robust public health infrastructure. And it brought to light a remarkable urban-rural divide in access to basic health services. In the months after the virus ravaged the country, federal dollars flowed to local public health districts, and policies targeting health care deserts saw a renewed push.
Yet as a disease that had been declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 makes a resurgence, rural West Texas communities and state officials are scrambling to respond. Aging infrastructure, a dearth of primary care providers and long distances between testing sites and laboratories plague much of rural Texas, where the measles outbreak has concentrated.
At least 198 people in Texas have been infected with measles since late January, and one child has died from measles, the first such death in the country in a decade.
More measles cases are expected, and the outbreak could last for months, state health services commissioner Jennifer Shuford told lawmakers last week.
Though different from COVID in many ways, measles is similarly revealing how a lack of public health resources leaves rural communities vulnerable. What’s left are local leaders forced to scrape together the few tools they have to respond to an emergency, contending with years of lackluster investment from the state and federal level to proactively prevent emerging public health threats.
“We’re in a public health shortage area,” said Gordon Mattimoe, director of the Andrews County Health Department.“ You have to think outside the box.”
