Health officials confirm measles case in Bucks County
More than 1,500 Pennsylvanians have tested positive for measles this year.
A Bucks County resident tested positive for measles on Monday, according to the local health department.
The adult resident recently traveled to Central Pennsylvania, where several measles cases have been reported this year, officials said. The person’s vaccination status is unclear, but they are no longer contagious.
The Bucks County Health Department has notified healthcare providers whose offices the person visited while contagious, and is working to notify patients who may have been exposed.
More than 1,500 Pennsylvanians have tested positive for measles this year; 290 have been hospitalized from sickness. Six people have died from measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, the most seen in the nation in more than three decades, and are investigating a seventh reported in Franklin County.
Across the United States, there are 5,182 confirmed cases since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its latest counts, which is already more than double last year’s total case count, according to the CDC.
Monday’s confirmed case in Bucks County comes at a time when the Pan American Health Organization is deciding later this week whether to revoke the United States’ measles elimination status, which it has held since 2000, due to the outbreak. While the designation is symbolic, it would mean measles — a vaccine-preventable disease — is once again spreading widely in communities across the United States.
The vast majority of Americans who have tested positive for measles are unvaccinated people who contracted the virus from someone in their community. In Pennsylvania, 73 new cases have appeared in the last week, including one rare “breakthrough” case of a vaccinated person testing positive.
People infected with measles generally begin experiencing symptoms within 10-14 days of exposure, Bucks County health officials said. Symptoms first include a cough, runny nose, red eyes, headache, and sneezing, then progress to a rash on the face and hairline that spreads downward.
» READ MORE: Your questions about Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, answered
“Given the ongoing measles outbreak in parts of Pennsylvania, it is reasonable to expect additional cases may be reported here in Bucks County,” said David Damsker, Bucks County’s health department director. “Fortunately, across Bucks County we overall tend to see very high rates of vaccination against measles, which prevents further spread and keeps most infections mild in the rare instance that they occur.”
Sarah Gantz contributed to this article.
