{"id":288749,"date":"2026-09-18T07:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288749\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T07:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:26:20","slug":"pennsylvania-asks-cdc-for-emergency-help-as-measles-outbreak-spreads-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288749\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania asks CDC for emergency help as measles outbreak spreads | Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania<\/a> is seeking emergency assistance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a major measles outbreak<\/a> spreads across the state. The state warned the request could be withdrawn unless the federal agency publicly recognizes four measles-associated deaths<\/a> reported by the state.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania department of health has begun the process of requesting CDC emergency support known as an Epi-Aid, according to a letter reviewed by the Guardian. The letter was first reported by Reuters<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Debra Bogen, Pennsylvania\u2019s secretary of health, outlined the condition in a letter sent on Wednesday to the CDC director, Erica Schwartz.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CDC\u2019s choice not to publicly recognize \u2060the deaths undermines our response,\u201d Bogen wrote. \u201cFor this reason, if CDC is unable to transparently and accurately communicate information about those measles-associated deaths, the department will respectfully rescind our request for a CDC Epi-Aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The development comes amid an ongoing dispute involving Josh Shapiro, the state\u2019s Democratic governor, and Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, the US health secretary, over the state\u2019s handling of the outbreak and how measles-related deaths are being counted.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has questioned<\/a> whether deaths linked to the measles outbreaks since he took office were caused by the virus or by another condition. He also instructed the CDC not to include<\/a> Pennsylvania\u2019s reported fatalities in the national measles death count last month, a move health experts called \u201chighly unusual\u201d and warned it could lead the public to underestimate the dangers of measles.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, meanwhile, has accused Shapiro of politicizing Pennsylvania\u2019s outbreak and failing to seek out federal assistance.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s latest move marks a shift from its earlier position. Pennsylvania health officials had previously resisted CDC assistance, saying they were capable of managing the outbreak without federal help. Since then, the situation has worsened.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania health department announced<\/a> that 731 measles cases have been confirmed in 38 counties across the state so far this year. Four people have died in the state from measles-related illness as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The CDC did not immediately respond to the Guardian\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

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The outbreak is among the largest and deadliest in the country and comes as the US experiences its most severe measles resurgence in more than three decades<\/a>, driven by increasing<\/a> vaccine hesitancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This month, it was revealed that the Trump administration changed the way<\/a> it counts measles deaths amid the outbreak in Pennsylvania. The CDC is now using data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which is a way to track mortality trends over time. It is unclear why this change was made.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Bill Cassidy, a Republican chair of the Senate health committee, blamed<\/a> the Trump administration\u2019s vaccine-skeptical approach for the \u200crecent measles deaths in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania is seeking emergency assistance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-288749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288749","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=288749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}