Pennsylvania health officials confirmed a fifth measles-related death on Wednesday, an unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County, as the state’s outbreak, the largest and fastest-growing in the country, reached 943 cases.
The state Department of Health said the person tested positive for measles before dying, and it released no other details, citing privacy. Lancaster County, the center of the outbreak, now accounts for three of the five deaths; Jefferson and Mifflin Counties have each recorded one. The deaths are Pennsylvania’s first from measles in 35 years. Cases have more than doubled since August, Al Jazeera reported.
The numbers are moving fast. Forty cases were added in the past two days and 114 in the past week, according to the state dashboard. Children make up 31 percent of patients. Only four cases have been recorded in vaccinated people, and less than 1 percent of patients are fully vaccinated.
A total of 176 people have been hospitalized, about 19 percent of all cases. That is roughly twice the national hospitalization rate of 9 percent, according to federal data.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts only two measles deaths in the United States this year, and it has not said which two. An asterisk on the agency’s dashboard reads, “This number is subject to change; CDC will update its reporting as additional information becomes available and relevant reviews are completed.” Ars Technica has reported that the agency, under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., altered the criteria for what it counts as a measles death. State officials have spent weeks publicly pressing the C.D.C. and Mr. Kennedy to recognize the fatalities.
Nationally, the C.D.C. has tallied at least 3,659 measles cases this year, Ars reported, the most since 1991. Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but vaccination rates have slipped since and exemption rates have hit a record high.
Pennsylvania is leaning on the vaccine. State nurses have administered more than 8,500 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine this year, including more than 5,500 at pop-up clinics in outbreak areas. Demand has surged with the outbreak: providers gave more than 53,000 doses statewide in September, the health department said, more than double the roughly 25,000 given in a typical month, after administering more than 49,000 in August.
“The best protection against measles remains getting fully vaccinated,” the department said on Wednesday. “The MMR vaccine, administered over two doses, boosts a person’s immune system and provides 97 percent lifetime protection.”
The department added that people with two documented doses do not need another, and advised adults with only one dose, or no vaccination records, to talk with a health care provider or pharmacist about getting vaccinated.