A fourth measles death is reported in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania officials reported a fourth measles-associated death. The latest death involved an 18-year-old resident of Mifflin County, in central Pennsylvania; the county coroner’s office said in a Facebook post that the cause was acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare and severe neurological complication of measles. On Saturday, a 40-year-old woman from Jefferson County, a rural area in western Pennsylvania, died of measles complications. Last month, two measles-infected infants died in Lancaster County, in southeastern Pennsylvania. None of the four were vaccinated, according to the state health department, and the infants were too young for vaccination under current recommendations. The deaths are the first measles-associated deaths reported in Pennsylvania in 35 years.

The U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991 and has seen seven reported measles-associated deaths in the last two years — more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades. Pennsylvania’s outbreak continues to grow, with nearly 700 illnesses reported so far this year across 38 counties, including about 100 cases in the last seven days. State health secretary Dr. Debra Bogen said in a statement Tuesday that her thoughts were with the two families who lost loved ones to the highly contagious virus, referring to the two most recent adult deaths. She said Pennsylvania faces the worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, that the state remains committed to working with partners to stem the outbreak and prevent more deaths, and that this means ensuring people have the facts about measles and access to the MMR vaccine, which kept outbreaks at bay for decades.

The U.S. eliminated domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but those rates have fallen in recent years below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks, while measles infections have surged. In November, international health officials will meet to determine whether the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status. The problem has been years in the making, as fewer children get routine vaccines due to parental waivers, health care access issues, and rampant disinformation. More recently, Trump administration health officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have questioned and sown doubt about the established safety of vaccines at an unprecedented level while also defunding local efforts to improve vaccination rates.