By Sriparna Roy and Kamal Choudhury<\/p>\n
Sept 15 (Reuters) – The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Tuesday reported two more measles-associated deaths, both in unvaccinated individuals, bringing the state’s total fatalities linked to the disease outbreak to four.<\/p>\n
One individual lived in Jefferson County, \u200cwhile the other lived in Mifflin County, the department said, without disclosing any additional details, citing patient privacy. On Sunday, Jefferson County \u200cannounced that a 40-year-old woman had died of measles complications.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania health officials have notified CDC of two additional deaths involving individuals who had measles, a spokesperson for the agency told Reuters, \u200badding that it is in contact with state health officials as they continue to assess these deaths.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania said last month two residents died after contracting measles, the first such deaths this year in the U.S.<\/p>\n
The issue has become politicized as the governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro and U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have publicly argued over the cases. Kennedy has said only one of the deaths was due to measles.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media platform \u200cX on Tuesday, Kennedy said the CDC would include \u2060measles-related deaths in its tally once the National Center for Health Statistics determines measles was the underlying cause based on state-submitted death records.<\/p>\n
Kennedy also accused Shapiro of politicizing the response and declining federal assistance, saying the government had \u2060offered to deploy CDC epidemiologists through its Epi-Aid program to help manage the outbreak.<\/p>\n
The CDC currently does not include the 2026 deaths in its measles tally and its website says it is reevaluating how it classifies measles deaths.<\/p>\n
Kennedy asked CDC Director, Erica Schwartz, to remove a reference to the two deaths from the agency’s online \u200bmeasles \u200btally, Reuters reported earlier this month.<\/p>\n
William Moss, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg \u200bSchool of Public Health, cautioned against letting disputes over \u200cdeath classifications overshadowing the clinical reality of the virus.<\/p>\n
Classifying measles deaths can be complex because the virus can trigger complications that ultimately cause death, Moss said. “But we certainly do not want measles deaths to be politicized. They’re tragic enough for the family and community.”<\/p>\n
U.S. MEASLES CASES SURGE<\/p>\n
In 2026, the U.S. has had 3,294 confirmed measles cases through September 10, according to CDC data. Pennsylvania has been the hardest hit with 693 cases in 38 counties.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania health department said it conducted rigorous investigations with cooperation from the Jefferson and Mifflin County coroner’s offices to determine that these cases met the \u200ccriteria to be considered measles-associated deaths before announcing them.<\/p>\n
It reports a “measles-associated death” when an \u200bindividual with an active case of measles dies and meets a set of criteria.<\/p>\n
Those include \u200bdeath within 30 days of symptom onset in an individual with \u200bclinical evidence of a measles infection and a positive laboratory test, and it is not due to unrelated causes \u200csuch as an accident. Whether an individual was exposed to \u200bmeasles prior to their death or supporting \u200bmedical records are also considered.<\/p>\n
Measles, which can cause symptoms including fever, rash and respiratory issues, is highly contagious but easily preventable with the measles, mumps and rubella combination vaccine \u2014 a routine shot for children that is 97% effective in preventing infection after two doses.<\/p>\n
Americans’ trust \u200bin vaccines for deadly childhood diseases, including measles, has \u200cfallen in recent years, a new Reuters\/Ipsos poll found.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump last month unveiled an executive order that criticized the measles, \u200bmumps and rubella vaccine, calling for the long-used combination shot to be split up into three separate shots.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy \u200band Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Tasim Zahid)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sriparna Roy and Kamal Choudhury Sept 15 (Reuters) – The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Tuesday reported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12429,15732,33,4913,3686,28,30,29,26639,119380],"class_list":["post-286779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-cdc","tag-jefferson-county","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-measles","tag-mifflin-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","tag-william-moss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286779","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=286779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}