Vaccine teams in Mexico scramble over measles outbreak rippling out from Mennonite community
Mennonites Abraham Fehr and Katarina Wall hold their baby in early May as he gets vaccinated weeks after the family fell sick with measles during an outbreak in Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua, Mexico. Photo by Megan Janetsky / The Associated Press
The Associated Press
In a rickety white Nissan, nurse Sandra Aguirre and her vaccination team drive past apple orchards and cornfields stretching to the desert horizon. Aguirre goes door to door with a cooler of measles vaccines. In one of Latin America’s biggest Mennonite communities, she knows many will decline to be vaccinated or even open their doors. But some will ask questions, and a handful might even agree to get shots on the spot.
“We’re out here every single day,” said Aguirre, pausing to call out to an empty farm, checking for residents. “To gain trust of the Mennonites – because they’re reserved and closed-off people – you have to meet them where they’re at, show a friendly face.”
Aguirre’s work is part of an effort by health authorities across the country to contain Mexico’s biggest measles outbreak in decades, as cases climb not only here but in the U.S. and Canada. In Mexico, cases have been concentrated in the Mennonite community — long skeptical of vaccines and distrustful of authorities — in the northern border state of Chihuahua.
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