Measles Prevention & Acute Treatment

For children and adults who have contracted measles, our Acute Measles Illness Care program provides rapid, clinician-led treatment through a 30-minute telehealth consultation. Your provider will assess symptoms, review health history, and develop a treatment plan that may include:

Antiviral therapy: Broad-spectrum antivirals with efficacy against single-stranded RNA viruses, prescribed at therapeutic doses tailored to the patient’s age and weight.

Nutritional intervention: Support using therapies such as high-dose vitamin A (via cod liver oil) and vitamin C to support immune response and reduce complication risk.

Symptom management: Guidance on managing fever, rash, and respiratory symptoms. In cases of respiratory distress, additional treatments such as inhaled budesonide may be prescribed.

Escalation protocols: Clear criteria for when to adjust dosing and graduate to further treatment options based on severity.

During duration of illness, patients will be followed up by RN staff based on individual patient needs. One week into treatment, patients receive a 15-minute follow-up call with the treating clinician to evaluate progress and adjust the plan if needed.

Patients enrolled in our Acute Measles Illness Care program receive ongoing support from our staff of Registered Nurses throughout the course of illness. Our RN team makes regular check-ins — daily in some cases, depending on severity — to ensure patients are responding to treatment and trending in the right direction. These touchpoints allow our provider staff to make real-time adjustments to the treatment plan if needed, giving families expert clinical support when it matters most.

Learn more about our Nursing Staff

Our measles protocols are built on multiple, complementary lines of evidence:

Vitamin A: The World Health Organization recommends vitamin A supplementation for all children with measles. Published research demonstrates that adequate vitamin A status can dramatically reduce measles severity and mortality. Our program uses cod liver oil as a whole-food delivery vehicle for naturally occurring vitamins A and D, in the tradition of Dr. Weston A. Price’s clinical work.

Nitazoxanide: Originally FDA-approved as an antiprotozoal, nitazoxanide is now recognized as a first-in-class broad-spectrum antiviral. A 2023 study in Journal of Virus Eradication demonstrated that it blocks measles virus replication by impairing the viral fusion protein. Clinical antiviral efficacy has been demonstrated against influenza (Phase 2b/3, The Lancet Infectious Diseases), RSV, parainfluenza, and coronavirus.

Ivermectin: An FDA-approved medication with decades of safety data and a growing body of published research demonstrating broad antiviral activity against RNA viruses. Dr. Pierre Kory’s published review in the American Journal of Therapeutics (2021) documents ivermectin’s antiviral and anti-inflammatory mechanisms across multiple clinical and preclinical studies. As measles is an RNA virus, ivermectin is a rational candidate for inclusion in this program.

Our approach is to bring every available evidence-based tool to bear for these families, and to continue integrating repurposed compounds as the science evolves.

Measles Prevention — Medications On Hand: $350

Includes a 30-minute telehealth appointment with a licensed clinician. Prescriptions are valid for 12 months.

Acute Measles Illness Care: $650

Includes a 30-minute telehealth appointment with a licensed clinician, ongoing RN nursing support during the course of illness, and a 15-minute follow-up call with the treating clinician one week into treatment.

Prescription medication costs are not included in the program fee and are paid directly to the pharmacy.

No, the prescriptions are a separate cost paid directly to the pharmacy. The program fees cover your clinician consultation, treatment planning, and (for Acute Care patients) ongoing nursing support and provider follow-up.

Some organizations choose to operate this way. We do not send out prescription kits to patients. We believe in having a proper visit with health history and other important details, especially when treating children. This allows us to tailor dosing by age and weight, account for any existing conditions or medications, and ultimately guide the treatment to be more effective while reducing the possibility of adverse reactions.

Patients who have completed a Prevention appointment receive detailed visit summaries with protocols to implement should their child become ill. You can log into your patient portal to review your treatment plan at any time. If your child develops measles symptoms and you need hands-on clinical support, you can upgrade to our Acute Measles Illness Care program for active monitoring, nursing support, and a provider follow-up.

This is exactly what our Measles Prevention — Medications On Hand program is designed for. We’ll walk you through a prevention strategy, provide prescriptions for broad-spectrum antivirals and nutritional supplements, and give you detailed protocols so you know exactly what to do if your child is exposed or develops symptoms. Having medications on hand before an outbreak reaches you is the best way to be prepared.

While the program was designed primarily for unvaccinated children, we also treat adults who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised and seeking measles prevention or acute care. Measles can be serious at any age, and our clinicians tailor protocols accordingly.

The use of broad-spectrum antiviral medications in the treatment of acute viral illness is most effective when started as soon as symptoms begin — or even upon known exposure, before symptoms appear. The longer into the acute stage you go without treatment, the higher the risk of developing complications. We offer same-day appointments for acute measles cases.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide care to patients who are currently hospitalized. While hospitalized, you are under the care of the hospitalists, who do not allow for outside care in nearly all cases due to liability concerns. We strongly encourage families to seek care as early as possible — ideally before hospitalization becomes necessary.