As measles cases continue to rise on the New York State Department of Health’s dashboard, public health officials in Otsego and Seneca counties said they believe the outbreak is even larger than the state’s tally shows.
County officials told Gothamist they believe many other cases are going unreported in their upstate counties, where the disease is spreading quickly in unvaccinated communities.
The state has confirmed 126 cases of measles through Oct. 10, including eight new cases confirmed last week, according to the state Department of Health website.
Data comes from cases reported by local health departments. The spread of the disease in rural upstate communities prompted Gov. Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency last week to expand measles testing and vaccination efforts.
But “looking at the number of cases can be a little misleading,” said Scott King, public health director for Seneca County in the Finger Lakes region, where the state dashboard has recorded 22 measles cases this year.
“Cases can pop up at any time if you get an official case and then you interview that person and they say, ‘Oh, yeah, my spouse and my four kids all had the rash,'” King said.
King said finding entire households sickened is a common occurrence in enclaves where vaccination rates are low. King said county health workers are working to confirm additional cases by interviewing patients who test positive, but not all households are cooperative.
“We’re dealing with some situations because we’re talking about probable cases and a lot of people exposed, and it’s still spreading,” King said.
Measles is highly contagious and is characterized by a rash, often accompanied by cold-like symptoms such as high fever, watery eyes and runny nose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In severe cases, it can lead to swelling of the brain called encephalitis, hospitalization or death.
The state Department of Health declined to provide demographic data on the outbreak. But state Health Commissioner James McDonald said at a public health meeting last month that about two-thirds of confirmed cases at the time were among unvaccinated adults.
Heidi Bond, public health director for Otsego County in central New York, said the state dashboard has recorded 21 cases of measles there. She said all cases involved unvaccinated people and most were adults.
She said the county’s deputy public health director has been going door to door offering the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in areas where measles is spreading.
But, she said, “the majority of people we’ve talked to have already had measles, themselves or their families, so they think, ‘We don’t need the vaccine because we’ve been sick.’ »
Bond said the goal now is to find those who are not vaccinated and have not yet been exposed to measles, while trying to convince those who have already gotten sick that they should still get vaccinated against mumps and rubella.
The state Health Department said it has administered more than 1,200 MMR shots in rural areas of the state since July.
Reaching undervaccinated communities – without naming them
Measles has spread to undervaccinated Amish communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and some of the counties that have recorded cases in New York also have large Amish settlements, including Seneca and Otsego.
In recent years, some Amish New Yorkers have adamantly resisted vaccines, facing thousands of dollars in fines from the state Department of Health for violating school vaccination mandates.
But state and local health officials in New York declined to say whether New York’s Amish were hardest hit by the state’s measles outbreak.
“We’re not naming the community, we’re just saying it’s an underimmunized community,” Bond said.
King was equally circumspect.
“We don’t want to marginalize or stigmatize any particular community, Amish or otherwise,” King said. “But there is a group of people in our county who are getting sick, overall, and so we are targeting that community to get that information (about the illness) as best we can.”
King said his office launched a door-to-door vaccination program in Seneca County last year and ramped up when “the first rumblings of measles” arrived in the county in early summer.
The program has distributed 139 doses of the MMR vaccine this year, all but eight administered since June, King said. That’s five or six times what was administered last year, he said.
He added that some members of the affected community came to the county themselves to get vaccinated when people started getting sick.
In addition to vaccinating people on porches, King said efforts to contain the virus include sharing information about how to protect yourself from measles — such as isolating if you feel sick — through flyers posted at local businesses and at community events such as auctions. He added that midwives who work with the affected community also share information about the disease.
Without explicitly linking Amish residents to the current measles outbreak, King added that these residents are an integral part of Seneca County.
“They are our friends and our neighbors,” King said. “We want them to be healthy. They want to be healthy. We all have the same goals.”
However, some Amish New Yorkers are actively seeking to expand New York’s strict school vaccination requirements.
While city and state data show the MMR vaccination rate among 2-year-olds varies widely by county, the rate jumps to more than 97% for kindergartners once school vaccination requirements take effect, according to federal data.
Shortly before Hochul declared the current measles outbreak a state emergency, a group of New York Amish petitioned the Supreme Court for a second time to hear their case challenging the state’s school vaccination policy, which does not allow religious exemptions.
In a handwritten letter signed by several representatives of Amish New Yorkers, a plaintiff in the case said: “Our Almighty God wants us to put our faith and trust fully in Him. Which is in conflict with putting our trust in vaccines.”
The letter added: “As a peace-loving religious group, we are sincerely sorry for causing a problem to the state. »
Lower courts have already upheld New York’s removal of the religious exemption.
Gn Health
