PHOENIX — An outbreak of measles has hit parts of the Pacific Northwest, and public health officials worry it could make its way to Arizona at any moment.
A little sting can mean the difference between life and death when it comes to measles. The dangerous disease was actually eliminated in the U.S. thanks to vaccinations back in 2000.
Valley mom Priscila Arredondo said Thursday it was something, “we were not supposed to be worried about.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unimmunized travelers brought it back, and as the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) Director, Cara Christ explained Sunday to Braham Resnik on “Sunday Square Off,” it is highly contagious.
“All you need to do is walk into a room where a measles case has been and breathe the air. Ninety percent of unimmunized people will come down with measles if exposed,” Dr. Christ said.
The latest example of this is taking place in Washington state, where the CDC had 52 confirmed cases as of Thursday afternoon.
“That worries me,” Arredondo said.
Public health officials here in Arizona were concerned too.
“What we are seeing statewide is a dangerous decrease in the number of people who are being immunized,” Christ said.
When that number drops below 95 percent, we lose what’s called “herd immunity.” There just aren’t enough people vaccinated to keep an outbreak from happening.
In the 2017-2018 school year, the entire state of Arizona had a 93.4 measles vaccination rate for children of kindergarten age. That number came in even lower for Maricopa County at 93.1.
That puts hundreds of kindergartners at risk for measles here in the Valley, and according to the ADHS website, in the event of an outbreak, more than 5,000 of the state’s kindergarteners would be at risk for measles.
Arredondo told 12 News it’s time for parents, “to be conscious about what’s happening in the country right now. It’s not fair for some kids to get sick because some parents, they don’t want to vaccinate their children, so we need to be responsible for our children and for the other children.”
Valley schools do keep track of unvaccinated students.
Maricopa County Disease Control medical director Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine told 12 News in an email if there is even one case of measles in a school, all unvaccinated students there will be forced to miss at least three weeks to prevent the spread of the disease.