{"id":287229,"date":"2026-09-16T10:40:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/287229\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:40:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:40:58","slug":"fourth-measles-death-is-reported-in-pennsylvania-in-18-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/287229\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth measles death is reported in Pennsylvania in 18-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Pennsylvania officials have reported a fourth measles-associated death.<\/p>\n

The latest death involved an 18-year-old resident of Mifflin County, in the center of the state, the county coroner\u2019s office said in a Facebook post. The cause was acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare and severe neurological complication of measles, it said.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, a 40-year-old woman from Jefferson County, a rural area in western Pennsylvania,\u00a0died of measles complications<\/a>. And last month,\u00a0two measles-infected infants<\/a>\u00a0died in Lancaster County, in the southeastern part of the state.<\/p>\n

None of the four were vaccinated, according to the state health department. The infants were too young for vaccinations, according to current recommendations.<\/p>\n

The U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991 and has seen seven reported measles-associated deaths in the last two years \u2014 more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Five midterm races to watch that could be crucial for vaccine policy<\/a><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s measles outbreak continues to grow, with nearly 700 illnesses reported so far this year across 38 counties, including about 100 cases in the last seven days. The measles-associated deaths are the first reported in the state in 35 years, state officials say.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thoughts are with the two families who lost loved ones to this highly contagious virus, as Pennsylvania faces the worst measles outbreak in more than three decades,\u201d the state\u2019s health secretary, Dr. Debra Bogen, said in a statement Tuesday, referring to the two most recent deaths \u2014 those of the adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain committed to working with our partners across Pennsylvania to stem this outbreak and prevent more deaths. That means ensuring people have the facts about measles and access to the MMR vaccine, which kept measles outbreaks at bay for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nation eliminated the domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but they have fallen in recent years to\u00a0below the 95% coverage<\/a>\u00a0needed to prevent outbreaks. Meanwhile, measles infections have been surging in recent years.<\/p>\n

In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have\u00a0lost their measles-free status<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The problem has been years in the making, as\u00a0fewer kids<\/a>\u00a0get routine vaccines due to parental waivers, health care access issues and rampant disinformation. More recently, Trump administration health officials, including Health Secretary\u00a0Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>, have\u00a0questioned<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0sown doubt<\/a>\u00a0about the established safety of vaccines at an unprecedented level while also\u00a0defunding local efforts<\/a>\u00a0to improve vaccination rates.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mike Stobbe<\/p>\n

The Associated Press\u2019 health and science coverage receives financial support from the\u00a0AP Fund for Journalism<\/a>\u00a0and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s\u00a0standards<\/a>\u00a0for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at\u00a0AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Pennsylvania officials have reported a fourth measles-associated death. The latest death involved an 18-year-old resident…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[42687,28,30,29,2303,4634,12755],"class_list":["post-287229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-infectious-disease","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-public-health","tag-states","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287229","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=287229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}