Pennsylvania has surpassed 1,000 measles cases this year, state health officials calculate, making it the largest state outbreak in more than three decades. The benchmark comes as neighboring New York declared a state of emergency about measles rates there. Pennsylvania’s health department said Monday 1,004 cases of measles had been confirmed.
Five Pennsylvania residents have died after contracting the disease, with 198 hospitalizations. Lancaster county, with sizeable Amish and Mennonite populations, remains the hardest hit, with 391 cases, according to official figures. Cases numbers have risen over the past three months, with the highest number of infections in the 24-49 age range.
The numbers, however, are not included in a CDC count due to an ongoing dispute between Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, and the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr over how to classify measles-related mortality. Shapiro has called Kennedy “incompetent”, and Kennedy has publicly questioned whether the state’s recorded fatalities were directly caused by measles. The CDC – which Kennedy oversees – currently lists two measles deaths in the US this year.
Shapiro has expanded access to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in affected communities. Ohio, which also shares a border with Pennsylvania, has also reported advancing numbers of cases, with more than 200 this year. Like in Pennsylvania, Ohio has a significant Amish population.
The US is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991. As of 1 October, the CDC reported 3,887 confirmed cases this year, along with the highest number of measles-associated deaths in decades. In addition to Pennsylvania, outbreaks have been reported in several states, including Texas and Utah, as well as South Carolina, which had the largest outbreak with 997 cases reported.
Health officials in Pennsylvania have said the state’s current outbreak started in April, west of Philadelphia and attributed the outbreak to low vaccination rates. According to the , the most recent outbreak to surpass 1,000 cases occurred in New York City in the early 1990s. That outbreak infected more than 4,500 people.
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