As Texas measles outbreak grows, newborn babies were exposed to the virus in Lubbock hospital
On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak.
On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles.
By that time, other new moms, newborn babies and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world.
Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.
A 2021 study found that the therapy is highly effective in protecting exposed newborns from getting sick.
“These babies didn’t ask for this exposure,” said Chad Curry, training chief for the University Medical Center EMS. “But at the end of the day, this is the only way we can protect them.”
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