Licensed practical nurse Kelli Fisher gives a measles/mumps/rubella vaccination to 13-month-old Ryleigh Fugate at CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital Thursday while her mother, Jessica Siders, of Clay, holds her.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The “most infectious contagious disease” circulating today is making a comeback in the U.S. nearly 15 years after it was declared “eradicated,” and West Virginia pediatricians are on alert.
“Measles is the most contagious disease of any,” said Dr. Kathryn Moffett, chief of the department of pediatric infectious diseases at West Virginia University Health Sciences. “With influenza, for example, you can have it and cough, and when you walk out of the room, the next person who walks in and breathes the air isn’t going to get the flu from breathing in the air — not so with measles. Measles is airborne…If you are susceptible to measles and you are exposed to measles, you are going to get measles.”
Measles, a highly contagious virus that affects the respiratory system, immune system and the skin, once was thought to be eliminated in the United States, but it has made a comeback. Last year, more than 600 cases of the disease were reported across the country, including 383 cases in Ohio among mostly unvaccinated Amish residents, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 6, 121 cases of the measles have been reported in 17 states and Washington, D.C., including Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. West Virginia has been unaffected so far, and has not experienced a measles outbreak in 20 years. That’s something public health officials attribute to stringent vaccination laws for school-aged children — West Virginia and Mississippi are the only two state that do not allow philosophical exemptions for school-aged children. The states allow only medical exemptions. As a result, the state’s vaccination rate among 5 to 18 year olds is 97 percent.
In January, 12 Republican state senators introduced a bill that would enable religious exemptions to vaccinations, but three of the senators dropped their sponsorship and the bill is stalled in committee…
