A growing measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, has sickened more than a dozen unvaccinated children and hospitalized nine of them, and local public health officials are seeking help from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’ve asked the CDC for help and they’re sending two epidemiologists at the end of the month to help with our local investigation,” Kelli Newman, a spokeswoman for Columbus Public Health, told CNN in an email Thursday.
The CDC confirmed Thursday that it is aware of the cases and is “sending a small team to Ohio to assist in the field investigation.”
“State and local health authorities are in the process of notifying residents who may be exposed, ensuring they are vaccinated and helping community members who may have been exposed understand the signs and symptoms of measles infection,” the spokeswoman said. CDC, Kristen Nordlund in an email. on CNN. “Anyone who may have been exposed should contact their healthcare provider.”
When the measles outbreak was first reported last week, only four confirmed cases had been traced to one childcare unit, which was temporarily closed – but the number of cases and facilities involved has risen.
As of Friday morning, Columbus Public Health officials have updated their investigation to include 19 confirmed cases, and more suspected cases, at 10 daycares and two schools.
“All the cases are in unvaccinated children and all but one are under 4 years old. One child is 6 years old,” Newman said.
Health officials from Columbus Public Health and Franklin County Public Health are investigating these cases and identifying any contacts who may have been exposed to the measles virus.
Columbus Public Health officials are encouraging parents to make sure their children are up to date on their immunizations, including the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as the MMR vaccine.
Experts recommend that children receive the vaccine in two doses: the first between 12 months and 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years. One dose is about 93% effective in preventing measles if you come in contact with the virus. Two doses are about 97% effective.
“We are working diligently with cases to identify any potential exposures and notify those who have been exposed,” said Columbus Public Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts, in a press release last week. “The most important thing you can do to protect yourself from measles is to get vaccinated with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is safe and highly effective.”
About 90% of unvaccinated people exposed to measles will become infected, according to Columbus Public Health, and about 1 in 5 people in the U.S. who get measles will be hospitalized.
However, the CDC says that over 90% of children in the US have been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella by age 2.
Measles is a highly contagious disease that can spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or if someone comes into direct contact or shares germs by touching the same objects or surfaces. Measles symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes and a rash with red spots. In rare cases, it can lead to pneumonia, encephalitis or death.
The measles outbreak in Columbus is a “fairly typical scenario” of an infectious virus finding its way into an environment and spreading among unvaccinated people, said Dr. David Freedman, emeritus professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and founding director of the Travellers’ Health Clinic.
Friedman said that during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, while many people stayed home and some health care facilities were closed, many children missed their routine vaccinations – and may still not have had MMR shots.
“There are many children across the country who are delaying their routine vaccinations. So I think the message is still, if your child is 1 year or older, they need to be vaccinated,” said Freedman, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
“Measles is not particularly a winter disease. It is not as likely to be affected by travel because it is usually in young, non-immune children. Most adults are vaccinated,” he said. However, he added, “measles is highly contagious. Measles is probably the most contagious disease we know. It’s probably 10 times more contagious than Covid.”
In 1912, measles became a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, meaning that health care providers and laboratories had to report diagnosed cases. In the decade that followed, an average of about 6,000 measles-related deaths were reported annually.
In the 1950s, researchers isolated the measles virus in the blood of a patient, and in the 1960s they succeeded in turning this virus into a vaccine. The vaccine was licensed and then used as part of a vaccination program.
Before the introduction of the measles vaccination program in the United States in 1963, an estimated 3 to 4 million people contracted the disease each year nationwide, according to the CDC. Subsequently, measles cases and deaths in the United States and other developed countries plummeted. There were 963 cases reported in the United States in 1994 and 508 in 1996.
The last major measles outbreak reported in the US was in 2019. It was the largest since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000 and involved more than a thousand confirmed cases in 31 states – the highest number of cases reported in the US since 1992.
Overall, the number of measles infections reported in the United States each year remains low because of the widespread use of vaccines, said Dr. Martin Hirsch, professor of medicine at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, who is also editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. illnesses.
As of Oct. 28, a total of 33 measles cases have been reported this year in five jurisdictions in the United States, according to the CDC.
“Over 90% of people in the United States have been vaccinated against measles, and even though it’s a highly contagious virus, I wouldn’t expect to see the rates, for example, that we’re seeing with RSV now because I don’t have an RSV vaccine.” , Hirsch said, referring to the rise in respiratory syncytial virus infections across the country, particularly among children.
“Most measles cases we see in the United States come from people coming to this country from other countries where vaccination rates are much lower, followed by transmission to unvaccinated U.S. residents,” Hirsch said. representative of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “So the possibility that someone carrying the measles virus coming into the country could spread to an unvaccinated population is always there.”
