Oct 5 (Reuters) – New York Governor Kathy Hochul \u2060declared \u2060a statewide disaster emergency \u2060on Monday over a measles outbreak, the first such declaration \u200bby a U.S. state since cases began surging in 2025.<\/p>\n
The state also expanded \u200cthe pool of health professionals \u200callowed to administer measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines as cases rise in rural communities.<\/p>\n
“No one \u2060should \u2060get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Hochul said \u200bin a statement.<\/p>\n
New York has reported 108 measles cases this year through October 3, including 92 since July 15 in under-immunized rural communities across 18 counties, well \u200babove typical annual levels, according to the executive order.<\/p>\n
Seven of the cases \u2060are in \u2060New York City and \u2060101 \u200bare elsewhere in the state, the governor’s office said. Local health departments have \u200badministered more than 1,000 \u2060MMR doses in rural areas since July 15.<\/p>\n
Neighboring Pennsylvania is battling a fast-spreading outbreak, with 977 cases and five deaths as of October 2, mostly in rural counties that border New York, the order said.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania health officials \u2060said on Monday the state’s total had passed 1,000 cases, making it \u2060the largest state outbreak in more than three decades.<\/p>\n
The US is having its worst year for measles since 1991, with nearly 3,900 cases reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
The order allows registered nurses to order tests for suspected measles and pharmacists to vaccinate children as young as two. It also requires all MMR vaccinations to be reported to state or New York City \u2060immunization registries within 72 hours, while waiving adults’ consent for such reporting.<\/p>\n
Vaccination itself still requires the consent of the patient or a legal guardian. The emergency took effect on Monday and runs through November \u200b4.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Dharna Bafna and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing \u200bby Diti Pujara and Anil D’Silva)<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 5 (Reuters) – New York Governor Kathy Hochul \u2060declared \u2060a statewide disaster emergency \u2060on Monday over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[59690,80927,94314,38559,9,24,55,54,56,4764,421,901,27254],"class_list":["post-365282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-collections-us","tag-collections-world","tag-epidemics","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-reuters","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}