Provincetown Independent: Vaccine Clinics Aim to Head Off Measles Threat
By Parker Mumford, Jun 4, 2025
EASTHAM — For the past month, clinics across Cape Cod have been offering free measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccinations. Measles — which had been eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control — has been on the rise since an outbreak began in West Texas in January.
So far, there have been 1,088 confirmed cases in the U.S., according to CDC data. Most of those people were not vaccinated against the disease.
As of June 3, no measles cases have been confirmed in Massachusetts, but Barnstable County Dept. of Health and Environment Director Jay Gardiner said the county aims to be proactive, especially given Cape Cod’s status as a “hospitality community.” With the tourist season beginning, Gardiner said, an importation of the disease is possible.
A first vaccination clinic was held in Provincetown on April 23; about a dozen people came, Gardiner said. Twenty-six came to a clinic in Orleans the following Wednesday, and a clinic at Nauset High School in Eastham drew 24 people, many of them members of the school’s faculty.
The measles virus, which can cause pneumonia and encephalitis, is airborne and extremely contagious. According to the CDC, the virus can survive outside the body for two hours after an infected person leaves a room, and 9 out of 10 unvaccinated people will contract the virus after being exposed to it.
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