Updated at 3:46 p.m. on Friday, April 25, 2025.
As a nationwide measles outbreak surpasses 800 cases, including five in Colorado, Mesa County is taking a proactive approach to one of the most contagious diseases on Earth.
Mesa County Public Health will host a clinic for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine from 9 a.m. to noon this Saturday, April 26, at its office, 510 29 1/2 Road in Grand Junction. The clinic is open to everyone 12 months and older, as well as babies 6 months or older that will be traveling through an area experiencing an outbreak.
The idea is to make the vaccine easy and inexpensive to receive, according to Sarah Gray, the agency’s communications and marketing manager. Most insurance companies will cover the vaccine, “but I do want to make sure to point out that we provide low- and no-cost options,” she said. “So we do not want cost to be a barrier.”
Measles is incredibly infectious and can linger in the air or on surfaces for hours, Gray explained. If an unvaccinated person is exposed to the disease, they have a 90 percent chance of being infected. That drops to nearly zero, however, if someone is fully vaccinated.
Across the globe, vaccinations have saved roughly 60 million lives in the last two decades, according to the World Health Organization.
“This really is a disease of the unvaccinated,” Gray said.
The vaccine clinic is part of a multi-prong defense Mesa County is launching against measles. Health officials have also been giving updated guidance to healthcare providers about how to diagnose and treat the disease, since most have never encountered it firsthand.
Measles can cause cold-like symptoms, as well as a large, red rash that can spread across someone’s entire body. For every 1,000 people who contract the disease, one to three will die.
Vaccination has been so effective in stopping the spread of measles that the disease was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Health officials say Mesa County has not recorded a case in at least 20 years. The World Health Organization estimates that vaccinations saved 60 million lives across the globe between 2000 and 2023.
Vaccine hesitancy, however, has allowed measles outbreaks to pop up and balloon across the U.S. in recent years. So far this year, the U.S. has recorded nearly three times as many cases as the 285 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted in 2024.
While Colorado has not seen a large outbreak, two bordering states have. Nebraska and New Mexico have each recorded dozens of cases.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to include a fifth measles case in Colorado.
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