Rowan County’s first confirmed case of rubella — also known as German measles — in about a decade has prompted the plant-wide vaccination of employees at the China Grove plant of National Textiles, formerly China Grove Textiles.

Rowan County Health Department staff members expect to finish giving MMR — measles, mumps and rubella — vaccines to about 250 employees at the plant, where one worker was confirmed with the disease Friday, according to Patty Yost, the department’s maternal child health supervisor.

The department was notified last Thursday that an employee had gone to the Cabarrus Health Alliance in Concord with symptoms of rubella, including a rash, swollen lymph nodes and a low-grade fever. The Cabarrus health agency drew blood and sent it to the state for testing.

“It was confirmed Friday,” Yost said, “and because he lived in Rowan County, the state consultant called us and said we had a possible case.”

As soon as it was confirmed Friday, Health Department nurses went to the China Grove plant and began immunizing employees on the afternoon and night shifts. They completed the job this morning.

Rubella, Yost said, is highly contagious and dangerous because it can cause severe birth defects if a pregnant woman is infected.

“So when we find this out, we go to the family and try to find out where this person contracted the disease,” she said. They had no success in this case, which is not unusual.

“Someone could have had it without knowing it. It has an incubation period of two to three weeks. It wouldn’t cause every baby to have birth defects,” she added, but it can be severe enough to cause death.

North Carolina has probably had slightly more than a hundred cases this year, she said. Cases usually occur in late spring and summer.

“We were crossing our fingers” hoping Rowan would escape this year, she said, “but we had already gone out into the community and given MMR vaccines” at various companies, beginning about a month ago, because cases had been reported in Union, Mecklenburg, Iredell, Forsyth and Stanly counties.

“It had been all around us but hadn’t popped up yet.”

The fact that the first case is an adult is not unusual, she added.

“Most children have been vaccinated,” Yost explained. “You see it more in older adults who haven’t been vaccinated. And you see this more in the Hispanic population, because a lot of their countries of origin give a vaccine, but a lot are coming into the country who are not appropriately immunized. Children who go to school or day care have to be immunized.

“So we’re immunizing any adult we find who has not had an MMR vaccine. We have Latinos working every place.”

About 400 to 450 adults have been vaccinated in Rowan so far this summer.

Any adults who do not know if they or their children older than 15 months have had the vaccine should call the Health Department to make an appointment for a free immunization. Businesses who want the Health Department staff to vaccinate their employees should also call. Those numbers are 642-2035 or 642-2008.

The rash which comes with rubella usually lasts three or four days, but the disease is communicable for two to three weeks before the rash breaks out.

Available records and memory indicate the last major outbreak in North Carolina occurred about 10 years ago. Rowan has had no cases since then.