Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania recorded nearly 100 new cases of measles<\/a> in the last week, bringing the total case count for this year to 792, state officials said Monday. <\/p>\n The state\u2019s measles outbreak is the largest in the country in 2026<\/a> and is centered in Lancaster County, which has reported more than 300 cases this year. <\/p>\n Chester County<\/a> has confirmed 76 measles cases so far this year, the third-highest total in the state behind Mifflin County in Central Pennsylvania, which has reported 93 cases. <\/p>\n State officials have reported four deaths associated with the outbreak<\/a>: two infants in Lancaster County, a 40-year-old woman in Jefferson County, and an 18-year-old in Mifflin County. <\/p>\n The state defines a \u201cmeasles-associated\u201d death as one that occurs within 30 days of symptom onset in a person with clinical evidence of infection and a positive laboratory test for measles, and who did not die of another unrelated cause, like a car crash. <\/p>\n Lancaster County\u2019s coroner said one of the infants died from a lacerated spleen, not measles, though the baby tested positive for the disease. Physicians have noted that measles can weaken a spleen and make it more vulnerable to rupture.<\/p>\n Federal officials have clashed with the state over its characterizations of the deaths.<\/p>\n Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> has faulted President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, for spreading misinformation about the safety of the measles vaccine and contributing to declining vaccination rates.<\/p>\n Kennedy, in turn, suggested Shapiro\u2019s administration \u201cfabricated\u201d two of the deaths, though he later acknowledged one death was caused by measles. <\/p>\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has not listed the deaths on its data dashboard for measles outbreaks. <\/p>\n Officials there have suggested the state is not cooperating with the agency and said officials had not requested emergency help from its Epi-Aid program, which provides short-term technical assistance and subject matter expertise during health crises, as other states with outbreaks have. Trump, in a White House appearance with Kennedy on Friday, called Shapiro \u201cclose to incompetent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIncompetence is denying the tragedy of four measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania,\u201d Shapiro wrote on X in response<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania health secretary Debra Bogen said last week the state was already working with CDC staff, and had begun the process of requesting an Epi-Aid team \u2014 on the condition that the agency acknowledges the deaths in Pennsylvania<\/a>.<\/p>\n Measles exposures in Philadelphia<\/p>\n Chester County is the only county in the Philadelphia area that has reported measles cases in the current outbreak, which began in April. (Montgomery County<\/a> confirmed three cases in a separate outbreak in the winter.)<\/p>\n But Philadelphia health officials have reported two potential measles exposures, at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia International Airport<\/a>. <\/p>\n On Sept. 11, city health officials said, a person with measles visited a neonatal intensive care unit<\/a> and several other areas at the hospital at 3401 Civic Center Blvd. in University City<\/a>. Infants exposed in the NICU were isolated and treated with antibodies to help decrease their chances of acquiring or becoming seriously ill from the highly contagious disease, CHOP officials said.<\/p>\n