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Houston Wastewater Foretold Texas Measles Outbreak

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on May 16, 2025.

FRIDAY, May 16, 2025 — Measles virus popped up in Houston wastewater weeks before a notorious Texas outbreak of the highly infectious disease started in January, a new study says.

Wastewater samples collected Jan. 7 contained genetic evidence of measles virus, researchers reported in the American Journal of Public Health.

The City of Houston Health Department confirmed and reported two cases of measles in unvaccinated adults on Jan. 17, researchers said. These people were travelers residing in the same area serviced by the sampled water treatment plants.

In all, 717 cases of measles had been confirmed in the Texas outbreak as of May 13, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Two deaths have occurred in unvaccinated children.

“With lessons learned from the Houston measles detection event, we are now working with our public health partners to gather data on the current measles outbreak in West Texas,” lead researcher Michael Tisza, an assistant professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in a news release.

“Our program has been monitoring measles in wastewater from those sites as well, hoping the information can help officials get ahead of this virus,” Tisza said.

The sampled Houston treatment plans serve more than 218,000 residents, researchers noted.

The detection of measles virus prior to the outbreak shows that wastewater monitoring can help public health officials get ahead of impending infectious disease events, researchers said.

“Systematically sequencing the genetic material in wastewater reveals dynamic changes in human viruses circulating in a community,” senior researcher Anthony Maresso, chair of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor, said in a news release.

“Importantly, analyzing these viral changes in wastewater can improve our understanding of outbreaks and transmission and inform public health preparedness, just as one uses meteorological data to better understand and predict weather patterns to anticipate potentially dangerous conditions,” Maresso said.

The researchers noted that 821 wastewater samples from Houston in the previous 31 months had tested negative for measles virus.

“Because no other cases have been reported and the detections occurred in the same area where the travelers resided, it is reasonable to assume that the measles signal detected in wastewater is from the two infected cases, which underscores the high sensitivity of the method,” Maresso said.

Co-researcher Eric Boerwinkle, dean of the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, said that “this work underscores the ability of sophisticated wastewater analyses to serve as an early detection system benefitting public health, healthcare and communities in preventing a measles outbreak in Houston.”

Boerwinkle urged people to get the measles vaccine if they haven’t already.

“The best protection from contracting the measles virus is the MMR vaccine, which has been shown to be safe and effective,” he said.

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted May 2025

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