{"id":305802,"date":"2026-10-13T15:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/305802\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:16:55","slug":"pennsylvania-confirms-more-than-1000-measles-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/305802\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania confirms more than 1,000 measles cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania\u2019s health department today\u00a0confirmed the state<\/a> has recorded 1,004 measles cases this year, an increase of 106 cases in the past week.<\/p>\n

More than 99% of people with measles in Pennsylvania have been unvaccinated, with just four cases in vaccinated people, according to the health department.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania has confirmed 198 hospitalizations, for a hospitalization rate of nearly 20%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Five people with measles have died,\u00a0including two infants<\/a>; a 20-year-old woman with leukemia who\u00a0was being treated<\/a> with chemotherapy, which suppresses the immune system; a 40-year-old woman with asthma and\u00a0another underlying lung condition<\/a> called chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder; and an 18-year-old who\u00a0developed disseminated encephalomyelitis<\/a>, a rare neurologic complication of measles with a high death rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All were unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

No other state has reported more than 1,000 measles cases in 35 years, when New York City alone\u00a0confirmed 2,000 cases<\/a> in 1991.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)\u00a0reported 3,887\u00a0measles cases<\/a> as of October 2, a\u00a06.2% increase<\/a> from the previous week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Number of deaths suggests uncounted cases<\/p>\n

The five deaths in Pennsylvania suggest the outbreak is much larger than reported, said Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Measles typically\u00a0kills one to three people<\/a> for every 1,000 people infected, Offit noted. With five deaths, that suggests there could be 5,000 or more cases in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that milder cases are being missed. Unless people see a health professional, their measles infection is unlikely to be recorded, Offit said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everyone with measles goes to the doctor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true for Pennsylvania\u2019s Amish community, which has been hard-hit by measles. Many Amish families prefer to care for sick children at home, rather than bringing them to the pediatrician.<\/p>\n

Health department officials in South Carolina also have said that the state likely\u00a0had more measles cases<\/a> this year than the official count of 997. Doctors in South Carolina\u00a0aren\u2019t required to report<\/a> measles-related hospitalizations, according to a report from ProPublica.<\/p>\n

The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000, because high vaccination rates had stopped the virus from spreading from person to person. Although occasional travelers would enter the country with measles, the virus didn\u2019t spread widely.<\/p>\n

Offit and many other health experts predict the United States will lose its elimination status next month, when the Pan American Health Organization\u00a0meets to review the spread<\/a> of measles outbreaks in the country.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania healthcare providers vaccinated 53,000 people with the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot in September, more than twice the typical number of vaccinations, according to the state health department.<\/p>\n

Those efforts may not be enough to stop the spread of measles, one of the most contagious of all viruses, Offit said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeasles is now endemic in the United States,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be seeing measles outbreaks for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

More adults affected in Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania measles outbreak is unusual because of the large number of infected adults, Offit said. Before the measles vaccine was available, most people infected with measles were under 5 years old, and virtually everyone was immune by age 15. People born before 1957\u00a0are considered protected from measles<\/a> because of the very high likelihood that they were infected.<\/p>\n

Only 32% of reported measles infections in Pennsylvania\u00a0were diagnosed in children under 18 years old<\/a>, according to the state health department. The largest numbers of cases in the state have occurred in people ages 25 to 49.<\/p>\n

Offit notes that all five measles deaths were either in adults or in newborns who caught the infection from adults. That\u2019s very different from the measles outbreaks of the midcentury, when the virus mostly spread from child to child.<\/p>\n

Setting a record for measles<\/p>\n

The US measles outbreak this year is the largest since 1991, when the nation was in the grips of a massive measles epidemic. That outbreak\u00a0led to 9,643 measles cases\u00a0in 1991<\/a>. US officials recorded 27,786 infections in 1990 and\u00a017,840\u00a0cases in 1989<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 1989-1991 measles epidemic\u00a0has been blamed<\/a> on budget cuts to vaccination programs and on national recommendations calling for children to receive just one dose of measles vaccine. In response, an influential advisory panel to the CDC recommended two doses of MMR vaccine in 1989.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s high number of measles cases are likely due to low vaccination rates in certain communities, experts say.<\/p>\n

Because measles is so contagious, communities\u00a0need to vaccinate 95%<\/a> of children to prevent outbreaks. But measles vaccination rates among kindergarten children have fallen from 95.2% in the 2019- 20 school year to 92.5% in 2024- 25, with much lower levels in certain communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Emergency declaration in New York<\/p>\n

In New York state today, measles outbreaks prompted Gov. Kathy Hochul\u00a0to declare a state disaster emergency.<\/a> New York health officials have confirmed 108 measles case, including many in rural communities with low vaccination rates.<\/p>\n

The declaration allows New York to \u201crespond more swiftly to the outbreak and allows healthcare professionals to take additional steps that will help get more New Yorkers vaccinated and tested,\u201d the governor\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The office said the emergency declaration is \u201cin response to the growing number of measles cases across rural areas of New York and neighboring states,\u201d which include Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania\u2019s health department today\u00a0confirmed the state has recorded 1,004 measles cases this year, an increase of 106 cases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-305802","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\/305802","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=305802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}