We’ve survived world’s most infectious disease… why we’re terrified about exploding epidemic in America

A Texas couple who survived the world’s most infectious disease are pleading with their neighbors and countrymen to get vaccinated.

Clayton and Kathryn Nash, 68 and 72, were born in the 1950s, about a decade before the measles vaccine was approved in the US.

Clayton was just six when he fell ill with the virus that is most deadly in young children. He said it was the ‘worst rash’ he’s ever experienced.

‘It’s different, because you’re itchy,’ he said. ‘It’s like the flu, but add itching — lots of it — and then if you end up scratching it, you’re going to have sores.’

Kathryn also remembers being bedridden for nearly two weeks, burning with fever and missing school. Neither was hospitalized, but both say they were lucky. 

Now, with measles making a comeback in parts of the country, the couple say it feels like the US is ‘moving backwards’ — and they’re terrified that preventable diseases will once again become a part of daily life. 

The measles vaccine was like a ‘savior’ when it first came, they said, with parents rushing to protect their kids. 

It comes as their home state battles America’s largest measles outbreak since 2000, with 663 people — mostly young children — infected. More cases were recorded in 2019, but officials believe these were the result of multiple outbreaks caused by repeat cases of the virus being imported from abroad.

Two small girls, aged 6 and 8, have also died from the disease marking the first measles fatalities in the US in a decade.’

Their pleas were published in the Dallas Morning News, with the couple saying it was their duty to speak up for the vaccine.

‘The people who have lived through those diseases or seen what they’ve done to others say, ‘Get vaccinated,” said Kathryn.

She added: ‘It makes me think that we’re going backwards, when we come up with another outbreak of something like this.

‘We should be going forward and eliminating more diseases, instead of letting the old ones come back and reinfect people.’

The couple fear that as vaccination rates fall, more children will suffer the way they did — bedridden for days, covered in a horrendous rash, and at risk of serious complications. 

Now in their 60s and 70s, they were never vaccinated against measles themselves. Health officials say people born before 1957 are presumed to have natural immunity from prior infection.

Clayton noted that his younger sister, born in 1962, did receive the vaccine. And today, the couple stay current on all their recommended shots, including their Covid boosters.

‘I just find it unbelievable that parents who have the option, opt against it,’ Kathryn said. ‘That’s just unbelievable to me.’

The measles vaccine — part of the combined MMR shot for measles, mumps, and rubella — was approved in 1963. 

One dose of the vaccine provides 93 percent protection against the disease, while two doses trigger 97 percent protection.

The first dose is offered to children around 12 months old, while the second is offered between the ages of four and six years. 

Among unvaccinated people who are infected, the CDC says about one in five are hospitalized while one in 20 children develop pneumonia. 

About one in 1,000 unvaccinated children who catch measles develop encephalitis, or swelling of the brain that can lead to brain damage. And sadly about one to three in 1,000 die.

In the early 1960s, before the measles vaccine became widely available, the US saw an estimated 3 to 4 million cases of measles every year, according to the CDC. 

Of those, approximately 48,000 were hospitalized, 1,000 developed encephalitis — a dangerous swelling of the brain that can cause permanent damage — and 400 to 500 people died annually. 

Since the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, the number of infections has plummeted by more than 99 percent. 

In recent years, the US has typically reported fewer than 200 cases annually, and measles deaths have become exceedingly rare.

But vaccine uptake has declined in some communities — a trend experts attribute to fallout from Covid-era vaccine skepticism, misinformation suggesting measles is a ‘mild’ illness, and long-debunked claims linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

In Texas, 94.3 percent of kindergarteners were vaccinated against the disease in 2024 — slightly below the 95 percent threshold that experts say is needed to stop an outbreak.

It is also home to the US county with among the lowest vaccination rates nationwide, Gaines County in the Panhandle region, where only about 82 percent of people were vaccinated against measles.

The county is also at the center of the major measles outbreak that experts say could last for more than a year and risks losing the US its measles elimination status, which it achieved in 2000.

Measles is a highly infectious disease spread by coughs or droplets in the air, and can infect nine out of ten unvaccinated people that are exposed to it.

The disease starts in a similar way to the flu, with coughs and a fever, but patients will quickly develop the characteristic rash, which starts on the head before spreading across the whole body.

The disease attacks the immune system and weakens it, raising the risk of other infections — like pneumonia — which can be fatal.

Doctors treat measles using antibiotics for secondary infections, as well as drugs to reduce fever and other symptoms.