Measles outbreak declared in Erie County, Pennsylvania
A measles outbreak has been declared in Pennsylvania.
Earlier this week, the Erie County Health Department confirmed two additional cases of measles.
Health officials say those two patients were directly exposed to a child who was reported positive at the end of March. Since the three cases are epidemiologically linked, the health department says it's considered an outbreak by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between contact tracing and quarantine measures, the Erie County Health Department says it doesn't have reason to believe there's a high risk of community spread or exposure. Still, people who were at UPMC Hamot-Emergency Department on April 5 between 5:30 and 9 p.m. may be at risk if not immune, health officials say.
Pennsylvania is now one of eight states with active outbreaks of the highly contagious and vaccine-preventable disease.
Texas reporting majority of country's cases
Last week, U.S. measles cases topped 700, with Texas reporting the majority of them. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter of the outbreak in rural West Texas. An adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated also died of a measles-related illness.
Even as the virus continued to spread and the CDC redeployed a team to West Texas, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a televised Cabinet meeting April 10 that measles cases were plateauing nationally. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.
States with active outbreaks - defined as three or more cases - include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Mexico.
Health experts fear measles will continue to spread
The multistate outbreak across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas confirms health experts' fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization has said cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that's airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
