The U.S. is experiencing outbreaks of measles, a disease it had declared eliminated years ago, largely due to a drop in vaccination rates in some areas. An outbreak in Washington state has sickened 23 people this month, mostly children under 10. Local health officials in Clark County, near Portland, Ore., declared a public-health emergency on Friday and are urging residents to track potential symptoms and call ahead before heading to medical centers. The outbreak is among other ongoing measles outbreaks across the country, including one in Brooklyn, N.Y., that began last year and has so far sickened 62, according to New York City health officials. These outbreaks are largely caused by a drop in vaccination rates in some communities, and the World Health Organization recently declared the antivaccination movement as one of the top 10 global health threats in 2019. Federal officials declared measles eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, thanks to a widespread vaccination program. But cases entering the country with travelers, as well as dropping vaccination rates in some states in recent years, have led to a rise in infection, with 349 measles cases across 26 states and the District of Columbia in 2018. Last year, there were a total of 17 outbreaks (defined as three or more cases linked together), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York and New Jersey accounted for roughly half of the 2018 cases, primarily among unvaccinated Orthodox Jewish communities. An outbreak in California linked to travelers to Disneyland sickened 147 people in the U.S. in 2015. The Clark County outbreak began early last week with three confirmed cases and has since grown to 23 confirmed and two more suspected. Of those cases, 20 were unvaccinated and the others are unconfirmed. Clark County has a vaccination rate of 77.6% for all students from kindergarten through 12th grade, according to the Washington State Department of Health. The state’s overall vaccination rate is 88.6%. Both rates are below the minimum 90% vaccination rate recommended by the CDC. Washington allows both religious and personal exemptions for school-mandated vaccinations, including for the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. Measles is highly contagious; the virus spreads through the air via coughing or sneezing and can linger for up to two hours, the CDC says. Early symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes, followed by tiny, white spots (Koplik spots) on the inside of the mouth and the red, bumpy rash that people most commonly associate with the infection. Newsletter Sign-up Coronavirus Daily Briefing and Health Weekly Get an early-morning briefing about the coronavirus each weekday and a weekly Health newsletter when the crisis abates. PREVIEW Children younger than 5 or adults older than 20 are more likely to suffer from complications that include ear infections and diarrhea, according to the CDC. One in 20 children will contract pneumonia, and one in 1,000 children could develop encephalitis, or swelling in the brain. Measles may also cause pregnant women to give birth prematurely. In order to prevent the further spread of the outbreak, local health officials are posting times and places where residents may have been exposed to the outbreak, including schools, medical centers, churches, a few local Dollar Trees, the nearby airport, a Portland Trail Blazers’ basketball game and even an IKEA store. They are urging residents who haven’t been vaccinated to determine whether they have been exposed and to take appropriate action. “If you’ve been exposed and you start to have symptoms, please stay home. Call your medical provider,” said Marissa Armstrong, a public-health official in Clark County. Public-health officials recommend that people call their health-care provider before visiting the office or center, so that medical professionals can make plans to see cases without infecting others in a medical center. Unimmunized children and staff at the exposed schools are required to stay home. It takes one to three weeks for measles to develop after someone has been exposed, Ms. Armstrong said, so those exposed in school may develop symptoms later. The MMR vaccine doesn’t require a booster shot, so those who have been previously vaccinated don’t need to take any further steps during the outbreak. Officials are encouraging people born after 1957 who haven’t received their vaccination to get one. “We’re really urging people to do that,” said Ms. Armstrong. One dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% effective, and two doses are roughly 97% effective at preventing the disease, says the CDC. Residents can get the vaccination from their local medical provider. Local health officials are updating the website daily around 2 p.m. Pacific Time to include new cases or locations that may have been exposed.<doc-sep>The governor of Washington state declared a state of emergency Friday over a measles outbreak that has sickened dozens of people in a county with one of the state's lowest vaccination rates. Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that the outbreak in Clark County "creates an extreme public health risk" that could spread throughout the state. Under Inslee's declaration, state agencies can use all available resources to help affected areas and additional medical resources can be requested from other states. Clark County Public Health has confirmed 30 measles cases since January 1 and identified another nine suspected cases. Twenty-six of the confirmed cases were people who were not immunized for measles, the agency said. Most of the confirmed cases — 21 — were with children between 1 and 10 years old. Eight cases involved people 11 to 18 years old, and one case was someone 19 to 29. The county released a list of public places where infected children visited, which included several schools and churches, the Portland, Oregon airport and a Costco. One case has been confirmed in King County, where Seattle is located. It involved a man in his 50s who was hospitalized. Clark County — which is in the southwest part of Washington and close to Portland — has a lower vaccination rate than nearly any other county in the state. Only 77.4 percent of all public students there complete their vaccinations, according to state records cited by the Oregonian. Measles is a highly-contagious and potentially deadly infection that is most common for small children, although it is easily preventable through vaccination. Symptoms include cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever and blotchy skin rashes. The disease is so contagious that 90 percent of people close to someone who is not immune will be infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The source of the outbreak affecting Washington has not been determined.<doc-sep>A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members continue preparations during the third day in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. 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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week announced that in the United States they are seeing the most measles cases in 20 years as they warned clinicians, parents and others to watch for and get vaccinated against the potentially deadly virus. (Photo illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (CNN) — As of Monday, there are 36 confirmed cases of measles in the state of Washington – an outbreak that has already prompted Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency. “Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children,” Inslee said in his proclamation on Friday, adding that these cases create “an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.” There were 35 cases of the measles in Clark County, which sits on the state’s southern border, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Officials said 31 of the cases involved people who have not had a measles immunization; the other four are not verified. Of the 35 cases, 25 are children between age 1 and 10. There are also 11 suspected cases in Clark County. There is also one case in King County, which includes Seattle. While the King County website says the patient, a man in his 50s, is a “suspected case,” the governor said in a news release it is a confirmed case of measles. In a health alert from King County, it was said the man had recently traveled to Clark County. Inslee’s proclamation allows agencies and departments to use state resources and “do everything reasonably possible to assist affected areas.” Meanwhile, the state legislature has introduced a bill that would ban personal exemptions for the measles vaccine. The proposed legislation was sent to the House Health Care & Wellness Committee. A news release on the governor’s website says the Washington State Department of Health, or DOH, has implemented an infectious disease incident management structure so it can manage the public health aspects of the outbreak through investigations and lab testing. The Washington Military Department, the release says, is organizing resources to assist the DOH and local officials in easing the effects on people, property and infrastructure. Last week, a person infected with measles attended a Portland Trail Blazers home game in Oregon amid the outbreak. Contagious people also went to Portland International Airport, as well as to hospitals, schools, stores, churches and restaurants across Washington’s Clark County and the two-state region, county officials said. Most patients with symptoms should call first Measles is a contagious virus that spreads through the air through coughing and sneezing. Symptoms such as high fever, rash all over the body, stuffy nose and red eyes typically disappear without treatment within two or three weeks. One or two of every 1,000 children who get measles will die from complications, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1978, the CDC set a goal to eliminate measles from the United States by 1982. Measles was declared eliminated – defined by absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months – from the United States in 2000. But there has been a recent rise in unvaccinated children. The proportion of children receiving no vaccine doses by 2 years old rose from 0.9% among those born in 2011 to 1.3% among those born in 2015, the CDC reported in October. In Clark County, Washington, where the current outbreak is occurring, 7.9% of children entering kindergarten had vaccine exemptions during the 2017-18 school year, according to the Washington State Department of Health. During the same school year, 7.5% of children in all grades in the county had vaccine exemptions. “That’s a high number,” CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Monday. “Once you start to dip below 95% vaccination you start to lose the herd immunity. I have immunity because I got the vaccine but I’m also protecting people around me due to the herd. Once you start to drop down as low as you see there (in Clark County), you lose that herd immunity and that’s also part of the concern,” he explained. Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team. The CDC recommends people get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to protect against those viruses. The typical recommendations are that children should get two doses of MMR vaccine, the first between 12 to 15 months of age and the second between 4 and 6 years old. CNN’s Pierre Meilhan, Artemis Moshtaghian, Faith Karimi, Debra Goldschmidt, Ben Tinker and Kevin Flower contributed to this report. Correction: This article and an accompanying video previously included a photograph of a child with a rash linked to a vaccination. The image has been removed.<doc-sep>
The governor of Washington declared a state public health emergency Friday after more than two dozen measles cases have been reported, primarily affecting small children. Governor Jay Inslee said in a statement that the Washington State Military Department and State Emergency Operations Center will be working with the Department of Health to combat the overwhelming influx of measles cases, of which there have been 32 as of Saturday, according to the DOH. Those infected are primarily isolated to Clark County, in southwest Washington, which directly borders Portland, Oregon. One case has now reportedly spread to King County, which includes Seattle, Washington. PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS FANS MAY HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO MEASLES, OFFICIALS SAY County officials revealed that people may have been exposed in at least one instance when an infected person attended a Portland Trailblazers home game. Other contagious people also visited the Portland International Airport, as well as hospitals, schools, churches and other busy public places. Ipsee previously issued a local public health emergency in Clark County last week, but now extends it to the entire state of Washington. "The measles virus is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children, and the existence of 26 confirmed cases in the state of Washington creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties," he said last week. Health officials have said 21 of the reported measles cases have affected children between the ages of one and 10. Though the measles MMR vaccine has been highly effective since it was first widely distributed in the United States in 1968, there has been a rising trend of parents deciding against vaccinating their children. According to an October report by the CDC, 2018 was the third consecutive year in which numbers of children entering school with vaccine exemptions rose. Data from a National Immunization Survey also revealed that the number of children reaching age 2 without having received any vaccinations has increased gradually, from 0.9% for children born in 2011 to 1.3% for children born in 2015. THOUSANDS OF YOUNG U.S. CHILDREN GET NO VACCINES: SURVEY These rates of non-vaccination are particularly high in the state of Oregon, which is worrisome considering its close proximity to the outbreak in nearby Clark County, Washington. Vaccine exemptions in Oregon increased from just 1 percent in 2000 to 7.5 percent in the 2016-2017 school year, according to PBS. The virus is something not to be taken lightly, Peter Jay Hotez, a vaccinologist at the Baylor College of Medicine told the publication. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Before we started vaccinating against measles, measles was the single leading killer of children in the world,” he said.