Eagle Mountain International Church, part of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries and located in Tarrant County, Texas, has been linked to 21 recent cases of the measles, HealthDay reports.  The church is actually located in a town called Newark, which is 20 miles north of Fort Worth.  Eleven of the 16 infected members from Tarrant County had not been immunized and the remaining five may have had one vaccination without necessary boosters.  In nearby Denton County, another five followers have also been infected, none of which were vaccinated.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the most recent person to fall ill was a healthcare worker who was exposed to a patient that presented at the doctor’s office with then undiagnosed symptoms of the measles.  The healthcare worker is among those that only got one shot as a child, without receiving necessary follow-up vaccinations as an adult.  About 98 percent of children are fully immunized against measles when they receive the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.  However, approximately nine percent of U.S. adults between the ages of six and 49 do not have proper immunity.

Measles, also known as rubella, is a predominantly childhood infection that is caused by a virus, reports the Mayo Clinic.  After being infected with the measles virus, a person goes through stages of the disease.  First, for seven to 14 days, the virus incubates and the person sees no signs or symptoms of measles.  In the second stage, which lasts two or three days, there are nonspecific symptoms, such as a cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes, and a sore throat.  In the final stage, the illness is acute and the person presents with an identifiable rash.  The rash spreads and the person likely has a high fever.  Then, both the rash and the fever gradually subside.  For about eight days, starting with four before the rash presents, the person is contagious.

In the U.S., measles was eradicated in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  However, the virus is still common around the world and international travelers can bring the infection home with them.  With the rise in people refusing vaccinations for themselves and their children, they are susceptible to infection.  The U.S. used to have an annual average of 60 cases of the measles, but in 2011 that spiked to 222 reported cases.Of these, 40 percent were contracted in other countries.  They resulted in 17 measles outbreaks across the U.S.