State of emergency declared over Washington measles outbreak

The outbreak began near Portland, Oregon, at the start of the year and quickly spread to nearby Clark County and King County, both in Washington.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY- Oregon State Health officials say a case of measles is confirmed in Multnomah County.

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District has reported one local case of the highly contagious measles virus. The state of New Jersey only recently declared an end to a flare-up of measles there in which 33 incidents were identified. A study past year revealed the price paid by a city's public health system for an outbreak is around $400,000.

Before the measles vaccination program began in the U.S.in 1963, about 3 to 4 million people in the USA got measles every year.

Public health officials in Clark County included another venue where people may have been exposed: an urgent care facility in Vancouver called the Legacy GoHealth Urgent Care Cascade Park located at 305 S.E. Chkalov Dr., with exposure estimated to be from 6:25 p.m.to 10:15 p.m. on January 22.

Measles symptoms include fever, rash, cough and red, watery eyes, according to Public Health - Seattle & King County. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield released a paper claiming to have linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to the onset of autism. But the CDC confirmed that 349 people suffered from the measles in 26 states and Washington, DC, in 2018. One dose is about 93 percent effective.

Health department officials have connected 27 of the Clark County measles cases to non-immunized people while four cases remain unverified.

Eighteen states allow non-medical exemptions from childhood vaccinations for philosophical beliefs. Travelers infected overseas can bring the virus into the country and spread it, causing periodic outbreaks. He also urged people who have not received the vaccine to get it now.

The World Health Organization in November warned that measles cases worldwide had jumped more than 30 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year, in part because of children not being vaccinated. On the East coast, travelers brought the infection back from Israel, which had experienced a large outbreak. More than two dozen cases have been confirmed statewide.

Those who are infected have visited public places while contagious, including the Portland International Airport, health care facilities and schools. "That way they can get medical evaluation and they won't necessarily expose a lot of other people". Complications from the disease, such as swelling of the brain, can be deadly. "If its an infant travelling to an area where there's no measles activity, they can be vaccinated as young as six months of age".