Each measles case in raging outbreak costs up to $50,000, CDC official says

Summary

In now-rarified comments from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency official on Tuesday evening said the explosive measles outbreak mushrooming out of West Texas will require "significant financial resources" to control and that the agency is already struggling to keep up. "We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions," said David Sugerman, the CDC's lead on its measles team. The agency has been devastated by brutal cuts to CDC staff and funding, including a clawback of more than $11 billion in public health funds that largely went to state health departments. Sugerman noted that the response to measles outbreaks is generally expensive. "The estimates are that each measles cases can be $30,000 to $50,000 for public health response work—and that adds up quite quickly." The costs go to various responses, including on-the-ground response teams, vaccine doses and vaccination clinics, case reporting, contact tracing, mitigation plans, infection prevention, data systems, and other technical assistance to state health departments. In the past, the CDC would provide media briefings and other public comments on the responses to such an extraordinarily large and fast-moving outbreak. However, Sugerman's comments are among the first publicly made by CDC experts under the current administration. He spoke about the outbreak at the very end of an all-day, public meeting of the agency's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which discussed a broad range of vaccine and vaccine-preventable diseases over the course of the day. The meeting was initially planned for February, but was abruptly canceled and then rescheduled upon the Trump administration coming into office, including the new health secretary and longtime anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But, despite concern for ACIP's future, the meeting proceeded more or less as usual on Tuesday and continues toda...