By MIKE STOBBE<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania health officials reported a fifth measles-associated death Wednesday as the U.S. endures its worst year for the disease since 1991.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said the person was from Lancaster County and was unvaccinated. The state did not provide any further information about the person who died. Lancaster County\u2019s coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said that his office did not handle the death and that state officials have not provided him with any details.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s other deaths have included an 18-year-old resident<\/a> of Mifflin County, in the center of the state; a 40-year-old woman<\/a> from Jefferson County, a rural area in western Pennsylvania; and two infants<\/a> in Lancaster County, in the southeastern part of the state.<\/p>\n None of them were vaccinated, according to the state health department. The infants were too young for vaccinations, according to current recommendations.<\/p>\n The U.S. has now seen eight 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 Pennsylvania\u2019s measles outbreak continues to grow, with 943 illnesses reported so far this year across 39 counties. The measles-associated deaths are the first reported in the state in 35 years, state officials say.<\/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 below the 95% coverage<\/a> needed 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 lost their measles-free status<\/a>.<\/p>\n The problem has been years in the making, as fewer kids<\/a> get routine vaccines because of parental waivers, healthcare access issues and rampant disinformation. More recently, Trump administration health officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>, have questioned<\/a> and sown doubt<\/a> about the established safety of vaccines at an unprecedented level while also defunding local efforts<\/a> to improve vaccination rates.<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism<\/a> and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By MIKE STOBBE Pennsylvania health officials reported a fifth measles-associated death Wednesday as the U.S. endures its worst…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4913,114611,99116,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-297341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-measles","tag-measles-deaths","tag-measles-outbreak","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297341","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=297341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}