Officials with the Tarrant County Public Health Department confirmed Thursday a student at Texas Christian University has a case of Rubella.
Health officials said the student, whose name is not being released, recently traveled through a region with known Rubella cases and imported the disease.
The infected student, who lives off campus, has been released from the hospital and is recovering at home in isolation through Saturday.
Tarrant County health officials are working with the school to find those the student may have had contact with, assess their immunity status and offer immunization for those who have not yet received their required Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccinations.
“Rubella is a disease that can spread amongst a crowd of non-immunized people. The good news is we have a very safe and effective MMR vaccine to prevent it,” said Tarrant County Health Director Vinny Taneja. “We are supporting TCU by working with all known contacts of this student and the university. We want to assure the TCU student body and our community that they are safe.”
Rubella, sometimes referred to as German or three-day measles, is an infection typically marked by a mild infection with a low fever and rash that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms of Rubella typically last up to three days, though about half of the people who are infected with the virus have no symptoms. The virus is spread from an infected person through coughing and sneezing.
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"Older children and adults may also have swollen glands and symptoms like a cold before the rash appears. Aching joints occur in many cases, especially among young women," the CDC reports.
"For pregnant women, in particular in their first trimester, if they're infected, it can cause congenital defects and possible baby loss," said Russell Jones, chief epidemiologist at Tarrant County Public Health.
Those birth defects if acquired by a pregnant woman include deafness, cataracts, heart defects, mental retardation, and liver and spleen damage, the CDC reports.
Rubella is a vaccine-preventable disease. For more information on who should be immunized and when, visit the CDC here.
Many universities, including TCU, require students to have the vaccine.
"I'm kind of scared, but I think that TCU has a lot of good health insurance and I'm probably thinking that a lot of students already get a shot for it," said TCU student Minh Nguyen.
Fact Sheet Rubella (Text)
NBC 5's Kevin Cokely contributed to this report.
