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A growing measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio has sickened more than a dozen unvaccinated children and hospitalized nine of them, and local health officials are turning to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for assistance.
“We have asked the CDC for assistance and they will be sending two epidemiologists by the end of the month to assist with our local investigation,” Kelli Newman, a spokeswoman for Columbus Public Health, said in an email to CNN on Thursday.
The CDC confirmed Thursday that it is aware of the cases and is “sending a small team to Ohio to assist with the on-site investigation.”
“State and local health officials are in the process of notifying potentially exposed residents, making sure they are vaccinated, and helping any community members who may have been exposed understand the signs and symptoms of measles infection,” CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said in one Email to CNN. “Anyone who may have been exposed should contact their doctor.”
When the measles outbreak was first reported last week, only four confirmed cases had been identified at a childcare facility that was temporarily closed – but the number of affected cases and facilities has been rising.
On Friday morning, Columbus public health officials updated their investigation to include 19 confirmed cases and additional suspected cases at 10 daycares and two schools.
“All cases involve unvaccinated children and all but one are under the age of 4. A kid is 6 years old,” Newman said.
Health officials from Columbus Public Health and Franklin County Public Health have been investigating these cases and tracing any contacts who may have been exposed to the measles virus.
Columbus Public Health officials are encouraging parents to make sure their children are up to date on their immunizations, including the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine known as the MMR vaccine.
Experts recommend that children receive the vaccine in two doses: a first between the ages of 12 and 15 months and a second between the ages of 4 and 6 years. One dose is about 93% effective in preventing measles if you come into contact with the virus. Two doses are about 97% effective.
“We are diligently working on the cases to identify potential exposures and to notify exposed individuals,” said Dr. Mysheika Roberts, Columbus Public Health Officer, in a press release last week. “The most important thing you can do to protect yourself from measles is get vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is safe and highly effective.”
According to Columbus Public Health, about 90% of unvaccinated people exposed to measles will become infected, and about 1 in 5 people in the US who get measles will be hospitalized.
However, according to the CDC, more than 90% of children in the United States have been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella by the age of 2.
Measles is a highly contagious disease that can spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or when someone comes into direct contact with or transmits germs by touching the same objects or surfaces. Measles symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes, and a red-spotted rash. In rare cases, it can lead to pneumonia, encephalitis, or death.
The measles outbreak in Columbus is a “fairly typical scenario” of an infectious virus making its way into an environment and spreading among unvaccinated people, said Dr. David Freedman, professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and founding director of the Travellers’ Health Clinic.
Freedman said that in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people were staying at home and some health facilities were closed, many children missed their routine vaccinations – and they still may not have received the MMR shots.
“There are many children nationwide who are behind on their routine vaccinations. So I think the message is still, if your child is 1 year old or older, they need to be vaccinated,” said Freedman, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
“Measles is not necessarily a winter disease. It is not as likely to be affected by travel as it usually occurs in young, non-immune children. Most adults are vaccinated,” he said. However, he added: “Measles is highly contagious. Measles is probably the most contagious disease we know. It is probably ten times more contagious than Covid.”
In 1912, measles became a nationally reportable disease in the United States, meaning health care providers and laboratories had to report diagnosed cases. For the next ten years, an average of about 6,000 measles-related deaths were reported annually.
In the 1950s, researchers isolated the measles virus from a patient’s blood, and in the 1960s they managed to turn this virus into a vaccine. The vaccine was approved and then used as part of a vaccination program.
Before the measles vaccination program began in the United States in 1963, an estimated 3 to 4 million people contracted the disease nationwide each year, according to the CDC. Thereafter, cases and deaths from measles in the United States and other developed countries fell sharply. 963 cases were reported in the United States in 1994 and 508 cases in 1996.
The last major measles outbreak reported in the United States was in 2019. It was the largest since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000, and affected more than a thousand confirmed cases in 31 states — the highest number of cases reported in the US since 1992.
Overall, the number of measles infections reported each year in the United States remains low because of the widespread use of vaccines, said Dr. Martin Hirsch, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, who is also the editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
As of October 28, a total of 33 measles cases have been reported in five jurisdictions in the United States this year, according to the CDC.
“Over 90% of people in the United States have been vaccinated against measles, and while it’s a highly transmissible virus, I wouldn’t expect to see the rates that we’re seeing with RSV now, for example, because we don’t. I don’t have an RSV vaccine,” Hirsch said, referring to a surge in respiratory syncytial virus infections across the country, mostly among children.
“Most cases of measles that we see in the United States result from people coming to this country from other countries where vaccination rates are much lower, followed by transmission to US citizens who are unvaccinated ‘ said Hirsch. a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “So the possibility that someone carrying the measles virus comes into the country, could spread to an unvaccinated population, is always there.”
