Mounting concerns over the nationwide measles outbreak tonight, with more than 100 confirmed cases in 10 states. The CDC says the majority of the patients were not vaccinated.
And according to a recent study by the Public Library of Science Journal, if you live in or around the Phoenix metro area, you’re living in the one place in the country most susceptible to a large, sustained measles outbreak.
12 News spoke with a health care provider and mother who shares why this is the case and what can be done about it
“Measles is actually the most contagious disease that we know of,” said Rebecca Sunenshine with Maricopa County Public Health, who says right now, Arizonans fall below the threshold of community immunity, which is 95 percent.
“When you fall below that threshold, measles can spread really quickly through the community,” she said. “We were actually ranked as the most vulnerable community to have a widespread measles outbreak.”
Here in Arizona, about 6 percent of our kindergartners are exempt to at least one school required vaccine. In Maricopa County, the percentage is about the same for children exempt to the measles vaccine.
Right now, there are three outbreaks in the U.S. – in Texas, New York and in Washington state, where they’ve declared an emergency due to the outbreak.
In Europe, more than 80,000 cases of measles resulted in 72 deaths last year. Sunenshine says we could see a devastating outcome if an infected person travels from Europe, where the vaccination rates are falling, to Arizona.
“What we’re hoping for is that we don’t have an exposure in a school that has a high rate of vaccine exemptions,” she said.
Sunenshine says if you have a measles case, 9 out of 10 people exposed are likely to get measles, if they are unvaccinated. She says the vaccine is the best tool we have.
“We’re very lucky as a developed country that we have actually been able to irradiate measles,” she said. “It’s really important that we get back to that level of 95 percent, where can prevent measles from spreading rapidly.”
The most vulnerable populations are children on chemotherapy, infants who are too young to be vaccinated and people with depressed immune systems. Sunenshine says our charter schools are most at risk, which have an average of 9 percent of kindergartners exempt from the measles vaccine.