Infectious disease specialists throughout Georgia have worked rapidly over the past few weeks to respond to a measles outbreak in the metro Atlanta area, according to the Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale Public Health Departments.
At the Gwinnett County Board of Health meeting Monday, epidemiology program manager Keisha Francis-Christian provided more information about how local health agencies have responded to the outbreak involving three members of the same family who were not vaccinated against measles. She told the board members that the first person to test positive, announced by the Georgia Department of Public Health in late January, sought health care at three locations before quarantining.
As a result of those visits, Francis-Christian and other epidemiologists have identified over 300 people who were exposed to the contagious person. She said residents in over 20 counties have been impacted by the disease investigation, including at least 114 in Gwinnett County. Francis-Christian said public health workers have tried to reach out to all these residents and have successfully made contact with most people.
“We’re following them,” she said at the meeting. “For 21 days, they have to report their symptoms to us. If they don’t report, we’re calling them.”
GNR Public Health and other Georgia health departments have not found anyone with measles outside the initial family.
“It’s just a very labor-intensive kind of process just to, again, make sure that we’re not missing anyone,” Francis-Christian said.
In Gwinnett County, clinicians administered preventive measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations to nine people. If received within three days of exposure, the vaccine can help prevent infections in patients who were never immunized against the disease. Additionally, an infant and a pregnant woman in Gwinnett were treated with antibody medications designed to bolster the immune system against measles.
To try to contain the spread of the highly contagious disease, Francis-Christian said GNR Public Health and its partners have been helping exposed residents seven days a week. She said the agency’s epidemiology team alone worked about 100 hours the weekend after the state health department identified the first measles case.
“It’s a lot of work, but everyone’s all on board,” she said. “It’s a really, really great team.”
Francis-Christian also highlighted the first person to test positive had recently traveled domestically, but didn’t say where. She noted that in the United States, there was a nearly fivefold jump in identified measles infections between 2023 and 2024. This month, Texas health officials are responding to an outbreak of at least nine residents in one of the least vaccinated counties in the state.
“Overall, we’re seeing a lot less vaccination, a lot more travel, and ultimately that’s causing more disease,” Francis-Christian said.
Later in Monday’s meeting, she said GNR has detected rising levels of other infectious diseases. Just over a month into 2025, the agency has detected 10 pertussis cases and 6 varicella cases in Gwinnett. In all of 2024, there were just over 40 cases of each disease in the county.
Georgia and the United States as a whole have experienced more cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, since at least last summer. In December, the state’s DPH sent out a health advisory asking providers to test all patients with symptoms, report positive cases, and recommend vaccination for anyone who’s eligible to receive it.
“Over the last few years, we’re seeing these trending upward,” Francis-Christian told the board. “It’s a major concern.”
After her presentation, Dorian Freeman, GNR Public Health’s Director of Clinical Infectious Disease, told the board that her team was notified of an active case of pulmonary tuberculosis in a South Gwinnett High School student in December. To make sure the disease didn’t spread, the agency screened 159 staff and students at the school over the past two months and detected no other active cases. Freeman said GNR plans to conduct another round of screenings at Berkmar High School in late February.
Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, killing around 1.3 million people each year. While effective medications for both latent and active cases are inaccessible in many parts of the world, they’re available in most parts of the United States. The bacteria spread is rare in school settings, said GNR Public Health Chief Clinical Officer Alana Sulka.
“When we do these screenings in the school, it’s out of an abundance of caution,” she told the board.
Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org. This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Healthbeat.
