Number of Measles Cases Rises in California
Total Increases to 68 From the 59 Reported on Wednesday
The crowd at Disneyland on Thursday in Anaheim, Calif., to where a major measles outbreak was traced.
Photo:
Associated Press
All but two of the new cases are in Southern California, where the vast majority of measles victims are located, according to the data released Friday by the California Department of Public Health. Orange County, where the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim is located, continued to lead the state with 21 cases, up one since the last update two days ago.
State health officials otherwise offered no new comments on the outbreak Friday.
Outside California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had received reports of nine measles cases in six other states as of Wednesday: three in Utah; two in Washington; and one each in Oregon, Colorado, Nebraska and Arizona. In addition to the U.S. cases, one child in Mexico was reported ill, the CDC said.
On Friday, the CDC alerted physicians across the nation to the measles outbreak linked to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, advising them to be on the lookout for symptoms—such as a fever and rash—and to ensure that their patients have been vaccinated.
The measles outbreak, which began last month with an infected person at Disneyland Resort, has led some public health officials to warn unvaccinated people—who comprise a majority of the current cases—of the additional risk of visiting public places.
Vaccinated people are safe to be in such places, they said. Some of those who have been infected have been hospitalized; others have been advised to quarantine themselves.
Vaccination rates are high nationally and have remained steady since the mid-1990s; 94.7% of kindergartners in the 2013-2014 school year were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, according to a CDC survey. But public-health officials are concerned about pockets in some communities and among some population groups where vaccination rates are low enough that one case can spark an outbreak.
Recent research in Northern California has found that children without all the recommended vaccinations often live near one another, forming clusters with a higher percentage of unvaccinated people. Some of these groups were made up of communities with an above-average percentage of graduate degrees, while others had a higher percentage of households with incomes below the poverty line.
“Anecdotally, doctors often report that highly educated parents tend to have more questions and concerns about vaccines,” said Tracy Lieu, director of the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in northern California.
“Conversely, in communities with higher rates of poverty, parents may find that competing life priorities make it harder for them to get their kids in for well-child visits,” she said.
In her San Diego practice, Dr. Elizabeth Rosenblum said many of the parents who refuse vaccinations cite concerns about possible bad health effects on their children. These risks, she said, have been shown to be rare.
“I would like people to understand and trust the scientists who study this for years,” said Dr. Rosenblum, who teaches and practices at the University of California, San Diego Health System. “When we say immunize your children, we’re saying immunize them to make your children safe.”
A yearslong trend of more parents in California seeking exemptions from vaccinations for their children could be starting to subside. The percentage of incoming kindergarten students in the current school year whose parents declined vaccinations for measles and other diseases dropped to 2.5% from 3.2% in 2013, marking the first decrease since 2002, according to a state assessment.
One factor, some officials say, could be a state law that went into effect in 2014 that made it more difficult to exempt children from vaccinations by requiring medical counseling on the risks.
Still, the numbers remain much higher than in 2002, when parents of only 1.2% of the incoming students rejected the vaccinations, according to the state assessment.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com, Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com and Caroline Porter at caroline.porter@wsj.com
