The number of measles cases confirmed in Pennsylvania this year neared 300 as of Friday, with Lancaster County accounting for more than half of the cases confirmed statewide.<\/p>\n
But as Pennsylvania\u2019s overall case count continues to climb, none of the counties in the state\u2019s northeast region have registered a measles case thus far in 2026, the most recent state Department of Health data shows.<\/p>\n
There were 296 total confirmed cases as of Friday, including 61 new cases confirmed over the prior week. None of those almost 300 individuals were fully vaccinated against measles, which has hospitalized 52 patients but resulted in no deaths in Pennsylvania so far this year.<\/p>\n
Lancaster County\u2019s 161 measles cases far exceed the number of cases registered in any other county. Chester County accounts for the second most cases thus far with 37, followed by Lebanon County with 20, York County with 15 and Mifflin County with 14. The four-county cluster of Lancaster, Chester, Lebanon and York collectively accounts for nearly 79% of the cases confirmed statewide.<\/p>\n
Other counties with measles cases this year include Bedford, 1; Berks, 4; Centre, 6; Clarion 2; Clearfield, 4; Dauphin, 3; Huntingdon, 1; Indiana, 4; Jefferson, 4; Lehigh, 2; Montgomery, 3; Northumberland, 7; Perry, 4; and Snyder, 4.<\/p>\n
While no Northeast Pennsylvania counties have yet to register a measles case, doctors with Commonwealth Health and Geisinger recently confirmed that their hospitals in the region are prepared should measles emerge here. The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine remains the best way to protect against the highly contagious viral respiratory disease, they said.<\/p>\n
Measles has become less uncommon in recent years amid declining vaccination rates. The 296 cases in Pennsylvania this year, a number likely to grow, come after the state recorded just 16 cases of the disease last year.<\/p>\n
State Department of Health staff had administered 3,200 MMR vaccine doses so far this year as of Friday, including 1,037 in August alone, state data shows.<\/p>\n
The state will next update that and other measles data, including the case count, Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of measles cases confirmed in Pennsylvania this year neared 300 as of Friday, with Lancaster County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1057,201,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,729],"class_list":["post-265566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-health","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}