The South Carolina Department of Health has reported that the state’s measles outbreak has grown to 789 cases, eclipsing the West Texas outbreak last year. CIDRAP has the news.
The South Carolina outbreak “grew by 89 cases in the past four days,” and is now the “largest measles outbreak the U.S. has faced in nearly three decades.” It is being driven by infections in private Christian schools in Spartanburg County that have “largely unvaccinated student bodies.”
The DPH stated that the “majority of cases are close contacts of known cases.” Currently, there are 557 people in quarantine and 20 in isolation; the “latest end of quarantine for these individuals is February 19.” 695 of the 789 cases are in people who are unvaccinated, and over half (493) are aged 5 to 17.
The U.S. will meet with the Pan American Health Organization to see if the “country has lost its measles elimination status,” which “hinges on sustained, local transmission of the measles virus for 12 months or more.” Meanwhile, the CDC’s principal deputy director erroneously suggested that “foreign, imported measles cases [were] causing the uptick in U.S. activity.”
