The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reported the state’s first confirmed case of measles in 2025 on Wednesday, April 23. The case, which involves an adult in far southern Illinois, is the first to be confirmed since an early 2024 outbreak in Chicago that resulted in 67 cases, according to a press release from the department. 

“This is the only case IDPH is aware of and this is not considered an outbreak at this time,” the department wrote in the press release. “IDPH will update the public should there be any notable developments. The risk of community transmission for the general public in Illinois remains low.”

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Dr. Jeff Ripperda, a family physician at Shawnee Health, emphasized this to the Daily Egyptian Thursday afternoon. “Anytime news like this comes out, it tends to trigger people’s anxiety, and maybe people who have some health anxiety in particular also get very worried,” he said. “It’s not like we got a widespread outbreak of measles. Again, we’re talking about exactly one person thus far.” 

IDPH urges all Illinois residents to check that they are up-to-date on their measles/mumps/rubella vaccinations, as people who are not vaccinated are at the highest risk of contracting the disease. 

“I’ve had people asking about taking more extreme precautions than they really need to take, like do they need to have levels checked in their blood to see if they’re immune to measles, should they be getting a measles booster shot, and the answer is, for pretty much anyone who got the childhood vaccination, the answer to that is no, they don’t need to do any of that, because we can generally presume immunity if you had the childhood vaccine,” Ripperda said. 

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In the press release, IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said that two doses of measles vaccine are 97% effective in preventing measles. According to Ripperda, the vaccine, which was introduced in 1963, is safe and effective. The CDC reports that in the decade prior to the vaccine, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years old. 

“If we go back to the 1950s and before that, before the measles vaccine came out…100% is statistically accurate on the number of people who got measles,” Ripperda said. “50,000 hospitalizations per year, 500 deaths in kids per year, and about 1,000 people who would have major neurologic complications – that’s per year from measles. After that vaccine was introduced in 1963, those rates went down incredibly, such that by the late 1990s, measles was thought to have been eradicated from the United States.” 

However, Ripperda said he receives questions from patients about vaccines now more than ever. The main concern, which was proposed by a British doctor in 1998 who later lost his medical license, is that autism can be caused by the MMR vaccine, which is given to children in two doses during early childhood. The idea was published in a small study that was later retracted as it was found to be based on scientific misconduct. 

“If the MMR vaccine caused any sort of spike in autism, we would have expected that rate to go up massively around the year 1963 when the mass vaccine was first introduced,” Ripperda said. 

According to a study published by the National Institutes of Health, approximately 15 million children were given one of the new measles vaccines from 1963 to 1966. The first studies of the prevalence of autism, which took place in the 1960s and 1970s, estimated 2 to 4 cases per 10,000 children. 

In their press release, the IDPH stated that unvaccinated individuals who are exposed to measles should look out for the following signs and symptoms:

• Rash
• High fever
• Cough
• Runny nose
• Red, watery eyes

Symptoms can take from seven to 21 days to appear. If an individual becomes symptomatic, they should notify their local health department and contact a health care provider before going to a medical office or emergency department. 

IDPH reported that all exposed health care staff at the southern Illinois clinic where the individual tested positive were wearing masks and are considered immune. IDPH and the clinic are working to identify any possible exposed patients and their immune status. 

Nationally, the CDC is reporting 800 confirmed cases, which is double the national total in 2024. IDPH said in the press release that they have been closely monitoring the outbreak in Texas and New Mexico, which has resulted in 680 confirmed cases and three deaths. 

“With hundreds of cases being reported nationally, we have been working closely with our local public health and health care partners to prepare for any potential measles cases in Illinois,” Vohra said. “IDPH is urging medical providers to consider a measles diagnosis in patients with consistent symptoms and alert their local health department immediately if they suspect a case.” 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include an interview with Dr. Jeff Ripperda, a family physician at Shawnee Health. 

News editor Carly Gist can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Instagram @dailyegyptian.

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