Over the weekend Utah and South Carolina, the current hot spots of measles activity in the United States, saw case counts climb, and Idaho reported a new case in a young child.
In global measles news, The Jerusalem Post is reporting that two vaccinated adult doctors have contacted measles from a young, unvaccinated patient.
4 more cases in Utah
In Utah the statewide total has increased by 4 infections and is now 64. Sixty-one of the state’s measles case-patients are unvaccinated, and 49 of the 64 cases, and all 4 new cases, are from the Southwest Utah health department, which includes Washington County.
Washington County is home to Hildale, a town that neighbors Colorado City, Arizona. Together those two communities are seeing an uptick in measles activity among largely insular and unvaccinated communities.
The Utah-Arizona outbreak is the second largest outbreak of the year so far, following the West Texas outbreak this past spring and summer that sickened at least 762 people. There are now 142 cases identified in the Utah-Arizona outbreak.
South Carolina outbreak also grows by 4 cases
The Upstate South Carolina measles outbreak that was fueled by exposures at two elementary schools with a large percentage of unvaccinated students has grown by 4 cases, bringing the state’s total to 37 cases, 34 of whom involve people who live in the Upstate region.
All four new cases come from Spartanburg County.
“The four new cases were linked to close contacts of known cases. No public exposures have been identified from these cases,” said the South Carolina Department of Public Health in a statement late last week. “We continue to rely on isolation and quarantine measures for those who have been exposed and are unvaccinated to prevent the spread of measles in the community to contain this outbreak.”
In Idaho, a child who is too young for school has been identified as having measles. There are now at least seven measles cases in the state. Officials told news media that the child, who lives in Boundary County, had recently traveled outside the area.
Finally today in Israel, two vaccinated doctors in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital have contracted measles after treating an unvaccinated child. Both doctors report mild symptoms and will remain in isolation for the duration of the infectious period of the disease.
As of October, Israel has seen 1,700 confirmed cases of measles, and 8 children have died from the virus.
