The United States is expected to lose its status as a country where measles has been eliminated later this week, as falling vaccination rates and a growing number of outbreaks threaten a public health achievement the nation has maintained since 2000.
Pennsylvania, which has been the center of an outbreak all summer and fall, is among most states struggling with declining vaccination rates. Last year, only 11 of the state’s 67 counties had kindergarten vaccination rates above the 95% level targeted by the World Health Organization, data obtained by NBC News showed, down from 58 counties before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decline has been particularly pronounced in places like Beaver County. Over the past 15 years, the percentage of kindergarten students receiving religious or philosophical exemptions from the measles vaccine has increased from roughly 1 in 60 to nearly 1 in 10.
In Allegheny County, where Democratic-leaning voters are more likely to have their kids vaccinated, about 1 in 20 kindergarten students now receive a religious or philosophical exemption.
Measles is highly contagious, making high community vaccination rates particularly important for people who cannot receive the vaccine for medical reasons.
“It’s clear that we can’t control measles very well in the United States anymore,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert, said. “We have to see value in the measles vaccine, see value in living in a world without measles, recognize that a world without measles is a world with a higher standard of living than one with measles.”
Even with Democrats gaining power in Harrisburg next year, Adalja said he didn’t see eliminating non-medical exemptions as a political reality in Pennsylvania, citing pushback from the anti-vaccine movement.
This new reality is also changing how doctors practice. AHN Pediatrics Chair Dr. Joseph Aracri said parents are coming to him with more questions about the vaccines than before, including what purpose they served, their ingredients and side effects.
He said he welcomes the conversation with parents, and invited them to bring their research to his doctors for a discussion.
“We’re on the same side as you. We want what’s best for your child,” Aracri said.
In the meantime, he said hospitals are changing tactics by adding triage stations and scanning for measles when patients come in with symptoms- practices they did not have to worry about in the past.
There was some good news in the data: the number of medical exemptions granted to Pennsylvania’s children has decreased in most counties over the past 15 years. Aracri said that was due to advancements in research that have given more children access to the vaccine.
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