{"id":299158,"date":"2026-10-03T15:52:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299158\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T15:52:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:52:38","slug":"5th-measles-associated-death-reported-in-pennsylvania-health-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299158\/","title":{"rendered":"5th measles-associated death reported in Pennsylvania, health officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who tested positive for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/measles-outbreak-us-map-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">measles<\/a>\u00a0has died, state health officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>This is the fifth measles-associated death in the state so far this year, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.<\/p>\n<p>In 2026, Pennsylvania has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/agencies\/health\/diseases-conditions\/infectious-disease\/measles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">reported<\/a>\u00a0a total of 943 cases across 39 counties. That includes 40 new cases reported since Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Measles outbreak linked to dropping vaccination rates, doctor says<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Lawrence Livornese, an infectious disease specialist at Main Line Health, said the cases reflect decreasing vaccination rates in some areas.<\/p>\n<p>In Philadelphia, where 94.5% of kindergarteners have received the MMR vaccination, which protects against measles, no cases of the disease have been reported. In Lancaster County, the vaccination rate is 85%. That county leads the state with 381 cases of measles in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a population where people are susceptible, about 9 in every 10 people who are susceptible and are exposed to someone with measles will develop measles,&#8221; Livornese said.<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania now leads the nation with the highest number of measles cases so far this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not the kind of thing you want to be No. 1 in, that&#8217;s for sure,&#8221; Livornese said.<\/p>\n<p>Livornese said hospitals are taking precautions, including educating front-line workers about the early symptoms of measles, which can be flu-like.<\/p>\n<p>Measles vaccine<\/p>\n<p>The measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/what-is-measles-mmr-vaccine-symptoms\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">vaccine<\/a> is safe and remains the best way to protect against measles, health officials say. The measles outbreak has prompted a growing number of people to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n<p>State healthcare centers have administered more than 5,500 MMR vaccinations since April in communities\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/18-year-old-measles-related-death-mifflin-county-pennsylvania\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">affected by the outbreak<\/a>, and nurses have given more than 8,500 doses of the vaccine at pop-up clinics across Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who tested positive for measles\u00a0has died, state health officials said Wednesday.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1057,3685,4913,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-299158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-health","tag-lancaster-county","tag-measles","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299158","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=299158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}