El Paso health officials confirm 3 new measles cases

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The City of El Paso Department of Public Health has confirmed three additional measles cases on Friday, April 11.
The new cases involve a 1-year-old boy, a woman in her 30s and a man in his 40s, according to the City.
City confirms 1st measles case, 2nd in region
The 1-year-old boy and the woman were unvaccinated, the City said. The vaccination status of the man is currently unknown.
The Ysleta Independent School District, meanwhile, sent a statement saying the City's Department of Public Health identified one case of measles at Bel Air High School.
The district said they will reach out to any Bel Air High School parent whose child was found to be in contact with the positive measles case.
About 34,000 students are enrolled at the district, and only 0.6 percent of students have not had the measles vaccine, YISD said.
'Ysleta ISD is following all procedures as prescribed by district and city health policies. To ensure the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and community, Ysleta ISD will begin regular fogging procedures at all campuses with an anti-virus solution to help mitigate the potential for further measles exposure,' read the statement.
The district did not say if the positive case involved a student, teacher or staff member.
The City has activated a public health awareness campaign and is collaborating with local hospitals, schools, clinics and community organizations to 'share timely information and ensure coordinated prevention efforts,' according to a news release that was sent out.
'We urge residents to ensure they and their children are up to date with their MMRvaccinations,' City-County Health Authority Dr. Hector Ocaranza said. 'Vaccination protectsnot just your family — it also reduces the risk of outbreaks and protects our most vulnerableneighbors.'
In addition, health officials have launched contact tracing efforts to identify anyone who may have been exposed and are working to mitigate the potential spread of the virus.
According to the City's Department of Public Health, state health officials have been notified.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads through coughing and sneezing and remains in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves the area.
Symptoms typically begin with fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes, which are followed after with a rash that spreads from the head down to the rest of the body, the City said.
Infected individuals are contagious from four days before to four days after the appearance of the rash. The day the rash appears is considered Day Zero.
The Department of Public Health said these are the individuals at risk of contracting measles:
Individuals who are unvaccinated.
Recent travelers to areas with ongoing measles outbreaks.
Immunocompromised individuals, including pregnant women, people with HIV, andthose undergoing chemotherapy or immunosuppressive treatment.
There are free walk-in immunization services available from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closed noon to 1 p.m. for lunch) on Monday through Friday at the following Department of Public Health clinics:
Lower Valley Community Clinic: 9341 Alameda Ave.
Henderson Community Clinic: 721 S. Mesa St.
Northeast Community Clinic: 9566 Railroad Dr.
Westside Community Clinic: 7380 Remcon Cir
To schedule an appointment, you can call (915) 212-6555
For additional information on measles symptoms, vaccinations and potential exposure, you can contact the City of El Paso's measles hotline at (915) 212-HELP (4357).
Residents can also call 211 or visit El Paso Health's vaccination and immunization tab.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Gizmodo

6 hours ago

• Gizmodo

When Will Genetically Modifying Our Children Go Mainstream?

In late May, several scientific organizations, including the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT), banded together to call for a 10-year moratorium on using CRISPR and related technologies to pursue human heritable germline editing. The declaration also outlined practical steps that countries and research institutions could take to discourage this sort of experimentation, such as strengthening regulations tied to gene editing. 'Germline editing has very serious safety concerns that could have irreversible consequences,' said Bruce Levine, a cancer gene therapy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and former president of the ISCT, in a statement. 'We simply lack the tools to make it safe now and for at least the next 10 years.' Newer technologies such as CRISPR have made gene editing easier, cheaper, and more practical to carry out in a variety of species, humans included. That reality has made heritable germline editing—altering egg, sperm, and embryos such that they can be passed down to offspring—more feasible than ever. In November 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui thrust this issue into the limelight when he announced that his team modified the genes of several human embryos using CRISPR, then implanted them successfully in women volunteers. Eventually three children were born with the modifications, intended to confer natural immunity to HIV infection. He deliberately flouted ethical guidelines and the law in his research, such as doctoring lab results so that HIV-positive men could father the children (according to He, the children were born without HIV and appeared to have avoided any related health issues). He's experiments were roundly condemned by the scientific community and he ultimately served a three-year prison term for his actions, which ended in 2022. Upon release, He went back to working in the gene-editing field, though he promised to abide by domestic and international rules. The episode showed that human heritable germline editing is already clearly possible today, but not necessarily ethical to carry out. Indeed, many scientists and bioethicists believe we're not ready to go down that path just yet. For this Giz Asks, we reached out to several bioethicists to get their take on the moratorium, and more broadly, on the question of when we should be able to genetically modify children, if ever. Founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine's Department of Population Health. I've been thinking about that question for well over 40 years. We didn't always have the technology to go in and modify genes in an egg, sperm, embryo, or fetus for that matter. But it's certainly the case that people have been thinking hard about trying to genetically alter and improve children, probably back to the Greeks. We know that in modern times, Nazi Germany was home to race hygiene theory and a form of eugenics; they would have been very interested in creating better babies. They did have the Lebensborn Program where they tried to force women and men that they deemed especially genetically fit to breed and have kids. It's not really clear whatever happened to those kids. But it's a form, if you will, of trying to get the right genes into your offspring and get them passed along into the future. They practiced that. And we had versions of that in the U.S., believe it or not. We actually had awards given at state fairs to families that were seen as eugenically the best and trying to encourage those families to have bigger families. That's an idea that's still rattling around today, by the way, in the mouths of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, etc. Many in the current Trump administration are very concerned about minorities becoming the majority in the U.S. In any event, these are old fashioned ideas, often fueled by dreams of eugenics, shifting the population in the future toward healthier, more competent, more physically able people, trying to get people of the right race or ethnicity so that the society's makeup is proper. They don't rely on engineering a gene. There's no CRISPR. There's nobody going in there and trying to penetrate the cell wall to insert genetic information. But those are just new ways to think about ideas that have been around for a long time. So if you ask me, will we see genetic engineering of children aimed at their improvement? I say yes, undoubtedly. Now when? I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Right now, we have some crude tools. We are seeing some efforts to use gene therapy in kids to repair diseases of their bodies, not things that would be inherited. They work a bit, but I wouldn't say we're really at the sort of utopia of being able to reliably get rid of in a person or a child, sickle cell or other major diseases. The tools, despite a lot of hype and a lot of maybe press release journalism, are not quite there yet to really say we can even do a good job repairing disease in an existing kid. So when it comes to trying to use tools to modify an embryo, I'm going to say flat out we're at least 10 years away from that in any serious way that could be considered safe, targeted, and likely to produce the outcome you want. So the big restriction now is safety. I think we'll get past safety, but it is a reason right now not to do anything. Now, what else might become an objection if we did have accurate, sophisticated tools? I think the first is access. If you make better kids, but only some people can afford it, that wouldn't be fair. And that in itself would be unjust. And you might wind up creating two classes or more of humans on Earth, the genetically engineered superior people and others. And this obviously is a theme all over science fiction. Old-timers will remember the Wrath of Khan from Star Trek for their take on what happens when you get a super genetically engineered race. There's Gattaca, another movie that explored this. But I'm going to say this somewhat controversially. Fairness in access never stopped a technology from going forward. When the rich and the middle class want it, they're not stopped by the fact that the poor can't get it. I would like to see provisions made to say we shouldn't move forward unless those technologies are available to those who want them regardless of cost. But I don't think that's going to happen. It's just never happened. So access is an issue, but I don't think it's a game-breaker for improving your kids. People also say, well, how will we improve? I mean, what's the best state? We can't agree on that. So will we really improve kids? There may be things we disagree about as to whether they're really improvements. Would it be an improvement to diminish pigment in black people? Try and make them less dark. We can certainly see that argued. There are plenty in the deaf community who say, well, deafness is not really something you have to get rid of or try to improve by genetically engineering hearing to make it better. They can get around the world deaf using a different language and different institutions. But there are clearly things that it would be nice to genetically improve in kids. Immunity would be great. We do it now with vaccines. It would be great to find the right genes, tweak them, and build stronger immune systems. It would be great to make sure that we try our best to diminish the extreme pain, that some of us suffer not just as disease, but with respect to certain stimuli. I'm not saying we should genetically eliminate all pain. That would probably put us in danger, but we don't quite have to suffer the way we do. My point being, the fact that we don't agree on everything as to what would be an improvement doesn't mean that we can't agree on anything. The last thing I'll say is this. When you try to make better kids, I think one last concern is: Are you going to make the children have less options rather than more? So if I considered it an improvement in a child to make them a giant, or to make them a tennis player, or to try and figure out perhaps some weird appearance that would make them a celebrity, I'm condemning the child to my choice. They don't have the freedom to run their own life. They don't have the ability to choose what they want to do. I tighten down their future by narrowing the kinds of traits they have. That, I think, is a legitimate objection. We have to think hard about that. Many of the things we do environmentally, learn to read better, learn to do exercise, learn to play games, these are skills that expand capacities in our children, and may in fact be values that are then passed on to future generations. But they don't wind up creating kids who are less capable because of those interventions. That's where genetic change has to be watched very closely. So the bottom line of this gigantic speech is yes, we will see genetic modification of our children. It will come. There are traits that people will eagerly try to put into their kids in the future. They will try to design out genetic diseases, get rid of them. They will try to build in capacities and abilities that they agree are really wonderful. Will we hang up these interventions on ethical grounds? For the most part, no, would be my prediction, But not within the next 10 years. The tools are still too crude. Associate professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine There are children with genetic modifications walking around today, children like KJ, who was treated with personalized CRISPR gene editing at just six months old. There are now kids who are free of sickle cell disease symptoms through CRISPR therapy, the first one ever approved by the FDA. All of these children are 'genetically modified,' and they and their parents couldn't be happier about it. What other conditions could and should be treated through genetic modifications? That's a question that scientists are actively working on, and that social scientists like me are talking about with patients, parents, and communities—because we and they think it's really important for them to be part of those decisions. These 'somatic' gene editing treatments that are already being used aren't the kind that is passed down through our reproductive cells, the germline. Heritable gene modification would involve embryos, eggs, or sperm, or even possibly other cells that could be turned into these kinds of cells. A technology currently being researched, called in vitro gametogenesis, could use gene editing to turn skin cells into reproductive cells, allowing families with infertility to have their own genetically related children. And of course, there are scientists looking at the possibility of editing reproductive cells to allow couples who carry the genes for severe diseases to conceive children without those conditions. Many ethicists and scientists have drawn a hard line between heritable and non-heritable gene editing, but in practice it's not nearly so clear-cut. Off-target effects of gene editing are difficult to predict or control, so there is a chance that reproductive cells could be changed by treatments aimed at other organ systems. Fetal gene editing, which could help babies with some conditions be born with few or no symptoms, will also involve the pregnant bodies of their mothers; those adults could host edited cells even after the pregnancy ends, possibly affecting their future children too. Families dealing with genetic conditions that cause great suffering for their children don't necessarily see a problem with eliminating those conditions forever with heritable gene editing. On the other hand, some people living with genetic conditions, such as deafness or autism, see no reason for treating their condition with gene editing, heritable or not, because their biggest problems come not from the condition itself but from the way society treats them. So there are many questions to be asked about all forms of genetic modification, and how they will be developed and implemented. All the gene editing treatments that exist now or are being imagined over the next decade, heritable or not, involve exorbitant cost and will be inaccessible to most people worldwide. It will be crucial to balance the excitement of these novel technologies with attention to questions of justice, developing new treatments with an eye toward both accessibility and the priorities of those most affected. The only way to do this is to bring more voices into conversation with one another: people living with genetic conditions, scientists and doctors, policymakers of all kinds, and members of the public. Although gene editing is an amazing tool to add to our kit, the work of building more robust healthcare and support for families carrying or living with genetic conditions doesn't begin or end with genetic modification. Bioethicist, sociologist, and executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Yes we should, when it's safe, effective, and voluntary. Calls to permanently ban the creation of genetically modified children often rest on fear, not facts. They mirror past moral panics over interracial marriage, in vitro fertilization, and birth control—all technologies or choices once deemed unnatural or dangerous, and now widely accepted. We should be wary of arguments dressed up as ethics but rooted in anxiety about change. That doesn't mean anything goes. Like any powerful technology, gene editing must be tightly regulated for safety and efficacy. But the agencies we already trust to regulate medicine—the FDA, NIH, and institutional review boards—are largely capable of doing that. We don't need a bioethics priesthood or a new bureaucracy to police reproductive decisions. We need science-based oversight, individual consent, and protection from coercion. One of the loudest objections to genetic editing is the specter of 'eugenics.' But if eugenics means state control over reproduction, then the lesson of the 20th century is to defend reproductive freedom, not curtail it. Governments should not tell parents what kinds of kids to have. Preventing parents from using safe, approved gene therapies to reduce suffering or enhance their children's lives is a strange way to honor that lesson. They should give parents access to all the information and technology for the choices they make. True reproductive liberty includes the right to use the best science available to ensure a child's health. Another objection is that genetic modification could harm people who would rather not participate. But this 'perfection anxiety' ignores how all medical advances shift social norms. We didn't stop improving dental care because it made bad teeth less acceptable. And a healthier society has not led to less compassion for those who remain sick or disabled—if anything, it's strengthened the case for inclusion and support. The goal should be equitable access, not frozen norms. We do need to ensure that parents can access all the gene therapies that actually provide potential benefits for children. Governments with universal healthcare will need to make tough choices about what to cover and what not to cover. For instance, the National Health Service should make gene therapy to remove lethal, painful conditions available for all Britons, but parents may need to pay for medical tourism to some offshore clinic if they want to tweak their embryo's eye color. What about risks we can't foresee? Of course there will be some. All new medical therapies come with uncertainties. That's why we have trials, regulation, and post-market surveillance. There's no reason genetic therapies should be held to an impossibly higher standard. We should start with animal models, and proceed to the most morally defensible gene tweaks, lethal and painful conditions. Over time, as the safety of the techniques are better understood, we can expand the scope of therapeutic choices. Some worry that genetically modified children could disrupt our ideas of family or humanity. But those concepts have already been revolutionized—by urbanization, feminism, economic precarity, and social movements. The family of today would be unrecognizable to most people in 1800. If genetic technologies change our values again, it won't be the first time. Liberal democracies don't freeze culture in place—they ensure people have the freedom to shape it. Ultimately, the question isn't whether we should allow genetically modified children. It's whether we trust parents to make mostly good choices under the oversight of regulators and doctors. We should, because most parents have their children's best interests in mind, as they perceive them. That's why we allow parents to raise their own children in the first place. And we should ensure those choices are equitably available to all, not outlawed out of fear. If we ever find genetic tweaks to reduce suffering, enhance capability, or prevent devastating disease—and we can do so safely and ethically—the real moral failure would be to prohibit it. A Canadian bioethicist and environmentalist currently teaching at the University of Toronto. Well, there's a big difference between genetic enhancement and treatment. And with enhancement, I think we're nowhere near a point where we should be even considering that. But with treatment, the large ethical issue right now is something like single gene mutation. So something like Huntington's disease, muscular dystrophy, or similar diseases, could it be justified to edit the gene for that? The challenge is we don't fully understand all the things. We don't know what we don't know, to put it bluntly. And with germline editing, the changes we would be making are permanent and they run through many generations ahead. So, yes, being able to prevent deadly or debilitating illnesses is absolutely something wonderful. But having said that, you obviously don't have consent of the person who will be born, but you also don't have consent of the generations that come after that. And if there is complications or unexpected problems, you can have an inheritance that just keeps running through generations. But here's the thing with this moratorium; to what end? You can call for a moratorium, but if no one's focusing on anything, if there's no research, no planning, no social discourse, there's just a lot of people with different opinions, and everything gets shelved for 10 years. I'm not sure that's going to be particularly useful. It sounds great if it's going to be 10 concentrated years on building consensus and public engagement and those types of things, but I don't think that's what would actually happen. And also, I'm sure you've noticed, the world's not in good shape, and Western culture is not of one mind these days. And with the ruptures, particularly in the United States, there's a lot of division in Western culture of how people see things. And I'm just not convinced that a moratorium, that people would make use of it in a constructive way. It really needs a coordinated plan, and I'm not sure there is one. So I do see that as quite a problem. The other thing is, we're dealing with high-income countries. So when we look at potential for CRISPR-Cas9 and gene editing, we're dealing with a very small percentage of the world's population. I'm going to guess that it's maybe 15% to 20% of the world's population, because most of the population of the world has no access to things like this and never will. Not never will, but in the foreseeable future, they won't. And I think that's something we miss a lot of the time. And the biggest ethical problem in the world today is not gene editing. It's just access to healthcare. And this doesn't do anything in those domains whatsoever. So from a justice point of view, that is a concern. And I'm going to sound cynical here. Emerging medical technologies are not motivated largely by the social sector. They're motivated by marketing and market forces. So if people can make money on this, somehow, someway, people will proceed. And if gene editing is illegal in Canada and the U.S. and Western Europe and Australia, there's a lot of countries that don't fall into that. And you can set up shop anywhere. Equatorial Guinea or other places are not going to be worried about things like this. They've got enough problems on their hands. And there's a lot of countries out there where this would not be easily called. So I support the essence of it. And I can see why people want to do it. I'm just not convinced it's all that feasible. I think what makes more sense is just not having any germline editing until we have a larger consensus about this technology.

UPI

a day ago

• UPI

NIH office to phase out HIV guidelines by next year

The National Institutes of Health office responsible for issuing federal guidelines related to treatment of HIV and AIDS patients in the United States is making major changes. File Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI | License Photo June 21 (UPI) -- The National Institutes of Health office responsible for issuing federal guidelines related to treatment of HIV and AIDS patients in the United States is making major changes. The NIH Office of AIDS Research or OAR told its employees this week it intends to phase out the guidelines by next June, the Washington Post reported, citing an internal staff email. According to the office, OAR "coordinates HIV/AIDS research across the National Institutes of Health and provides the largest public investment in HIV/AIDS research globally." "In the climate of budget decreases and revised priorities, OAR is beginning to explore options to transfer management of the guidelines to another agency within" the letter obtained by The Post reads. The OAR guidelines contain guidelines related to diagnosis and treatments of HIV and AIDS. There are currently more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States. It was not immediately clear what the other agency referred to in the letter was or how such a move may affect the guideline, the Post reported. The news comes as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio move to cut over $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID and merge it into the State Department. State Department officials say the move comes with the expectation that other countries will increase their roles in delivering aid around the world. An April report published in the Lancet medical journal found around half a million children globally could die from AIDS by 2030 if the United States cuts its global relief funding. Earlier this week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved use of the HIV drug lenacapavir, which is produced by California-based biopharma firm Gilead Sciences under the name Yeztugo. "Yeztugo is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of our time and offers a very real opportunity to help end the HIV epidemic," Gilead Science Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel O'Day said in a statement on the company's website

Washington Post

a day ago

• Washington Post

Administration to phase out NIH support of HIV clinical guidelines

The National Institutes of Health's support for federal guidelines that steer the treatment of more than a million HIV patients in the United States will be phased out by next June, according to the agency's Office of AIDS Research, a move that troubled some doctors and raised questions about whether the guidelines themselves will change. It is unclear whether Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to bring the guidance in line with his own controversial views about an infectious disease that 30 years ago was the leading cause of death for people 25 to 44 years old. The Office of AIDS Research, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, informed members of the panels responsible for the guidelines in a letter that, 'in the climate of budget decreases and revised priorities, OAR is beginning to explore options to transfer management of the guidelines to another agency within' HHS. The guidelines, detailed recommendations on how to diagnose and treat medical conditions, can affect what tests, treatments and medications are covered by insurance companies and Medicare, said Aniruddha Hazra, associate professor of medicine at University of Chicago Medicine. The lack of clarity in the letter caused some in the medical community to worry that switching oversight of the guidelines to another branch of HHS could be a first step by the Trump administration toward more drastic changes in the government's treatment recommendations. 'From a practical standpoint, it's monumental,' Hazra said of the news about the guidelines, which he called the basis for much of the knowledge about HIV. 'The loss of this kind of federal guidance throws everything into the dark,' he said. Hazra described the guidelines as a dynamic document that changes at least once or twice a year as new studies and scientific evidence come to light. Guidelines for HIV are divided into a half-dozen categories, including sets for adults/adolescents, pediatric patients, pregnant women and HIV patients who are displaced by natural disasters. The webpage listing the guidelines now says they are 'being updated to comply with Executive Orders,' raising the question of whether sections dealing with care for transgender people with HIV may be changed or eliminated. The letter sent to panel members did not say specifically if or how the clinical practice guidelines might change, only that 'Together, we now have an opportunity to develop a proactive, careful transition plan for each Panel.' The letter noted that 'a special session on guidelines sustainability planning' has been scheduled for Thursday with panel leadership and the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council. Officials at NIH referred questions to the Department of Health and Human Services, which did not respond to emails requesting clarification of the letter. Kennedy has long espoused controversial views about HIV, suggesting that contrary to widely held medical belief, the virus was not the cause of AIDS. In a video posted on Twitter in 2023, Kennedy tells an audience, 'A hundred percent of the people who died at first, the first thousand who had AIDS, were people who were addicted to [a class of drugs called] poppers. … They were people who were part of a gay lifestyle. They were burning the candle at both ends, and they were taking a lot of injectable drugs.' Under Kennedy, HHS has terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in HIV-related research grants. The department closed its Office of Infectious Diseases & HIV Policy that coordinated the federal response to the virus. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost staff in its HIV prevention division who conducted studies and surveillance, ran health campaigns and supported local prevention programs. 'These guidelines serve as a reference for the world in addition to caring for people in the U.S.,' said Theodore Ruel, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, and co-chair of one of the panels responsible for the guidelines. 'It is disappointing that such a key guideline about HIV for children in the USA will no longer be supported by the NIH,' said Ruel — whose panel examines antiretroviral therapy for the medical management of children living with HIV — stressing that he was not speaking for the other panelists. 'I am concerned that we are unlikely to find a new home that can maintain the same depth, quality, access and capacity for real-time updating.' He expressed faith that the panelists would push to find a home for the guidelines where they can continue to offer 'science-driven support' for doctors and patients. James M. Sosman, medical director for UW Health's HIV Care and Prevention Program, who has been caring for people with the disease for decades, said that having the guidelines under the auspices of the Office of AIDS Research made sense. 'Would I look to move that? I'm reluctant because it's like, 'Hey, if you've got a guy that's hitting home runs at third base, don't move them to first base,'' Sosman said. 'I mean if it's working out, why are you disrupting this for costs that don't seem that great.'