Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak has hit a sobering milestone, surpassing 1,000 cases — the first U.S. outbreak to do so in 35 years.
In Pennsylvania, the virus has moved through communities where many children and adults have gone years without the two doses of measles vaccine needed for reliable protection. The widening outbreak has infected 1,004 people spread across 39 counties and hospitalized nearly 200 people, authorities reported Monday.
State officials have reported five measles-associated deaths, including an 18-year-old and a 40-year-old. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week that the most recent death was of a 20-year-old woman with leukemia who wanted to get vaccinated but could not because she was receiving cancer treatment.
The deaths of three adults highlight the consequences of vaccination gaps that stretch back decades, not just the recent decline in childhood immunization.
The largest previous measles outbreak in the United States took place in Philadelphia in 1991 and infected 1,400 people, including nine who died. The epidemic centered on two fundamentalist churches whose members refused vaccines as well as medical care for their children.
The Pennsylvania outbreak and others this year in Utah and South Carolina are another sign of how far the U.S. has backslid since eliminating measles in 2000. Falling vaccination rates have allowed the highly contagious virus to spread widely.
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