A fifth person in Pennsylvania has died with measles as the state experiences its worst outbreak of the disease in more than three decades.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania had reported 943 measles cases as of Friday, with 40% of those cases in Lancaster County, the epicenter of the state’s outbreak.<\/p>\n
As cases surge, health workers in Montgomery County are bringing the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to community vaccine clinics.<\/p>\n
The county has previously offered COVID-19 and seasonal flu vaccines at clinics, but this year it is also offering the MMR vaccine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never given MMR at clinics like this before,\u201d Kalyn Roberts, with the Montgomery County Department of Health, said.<\/p>\n
Unlike flu and COVID-19, measles does not change, so not everyone needs another shot.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ronald Goren, an infectious disease specialist for St. Mary Medical Center and Nazareth Hospital, said people should first check their medical records to determine whether they are protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, so bottom line is, if you know you had measles and technically if you can prove that you had two shots, you’re immune,\u201d Goren said.<\/p>\n
Goren said people born before 1957 are likely to have had measles, while people born between 1957 and the mid-1980s should determine whether they received a second vaccine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are born before 1957, almost everybody had measles, including myself, although at some point they said if you’re a healthcare worker and you’re around an epidemic, maybe you want to check because it’s been a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you were born between 1957 and somewhere in the mid 80s, when they decided to give two vaccines, if you never had a second shot, you probably ought to get a second shot,\u201d Goren said.<\/p>\n
Goren said another option is to ask a doctor for a measles titer, a blood test that can help determine immunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the other way you can find out if you have measles, and it’s not that hard, is have your doctor send you to LabCorp or Quest and do a measles titer.” Goren said. <\/p>\n
Goren said Lancaster County’s outbreak is largely tied to the area’s unvaccinated population. He also recalled a previous measles outbreak in southeastern Pennsylvania in which many children became severely ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get it in your late teens and 20s, you really can get very sick,\u201d Goren said.<\/p>\n
Montgomery County is holding eight vaccine clinics this month, with more scheduled this weekend. Health officials said cost should not prevent people from receiving a vaccine at the clinics.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fifth person in Pennsylvania has died with measles as the state experiences its worst outbreak of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1057,3831,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-298013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298013","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=298013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}