Pushback Over Arizona Border Patrol Measles Diagnosis

PHOENIX, AZ — While Arizona health officials question the erroneous statements from Border Patrol on migrants with measles, University of Arizona research is showing Central Americans tend to have a higher vaccination rate than those in the U.S.

Last week, a news release from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's Yuma sector claimed a detained Guatemalan migrant child was found to have measles. Six hours later, the Border Patrol sent a second release clarifying the child had strep throat, not measles.

A supervisor for the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector said the station's physician's assistant made the initial diagnosis.

"The whole thing does sound fishy to me," Will Humble, a former Arizona health director who is now executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, an advocacy group, told The Arizona Republic.

Of the inaccurate measles report, Humble said: "I don't know what their motivation was, but it does call into question the medical assessment that was happening at the time."

Humble added that sending the public information about potential infections from highly contagious viruses is something that should be saved for local or state health departments.

The number of measles cases in the U.S. this year has jumped to the second-highest totals since it was declared eliminated in 2000 and is on pace to surpass those numbers, but University of Arizona researcher Kathryn Tucker says it's wrong to blame immigrants.

While more than 22,000 asylum-seeking migrants have passed through Arizona since January, most have a higher vaccination rate than those in the U.S.

About 93% of Arizonans are vaccinated, according to the state's Center for Disease Control. The rate for Guatemalans, the country where the majority of migrants are coming from, is between 95 and 98%, Tucker said.

"The health issues we see from migrants who are crossing and may come into our humanitarian shelters include things like dehydration, blisters, burns, scrapes — anything that you might expect from anyone who has just crossed the desert."