Area doctors brace for more measles as Pa. cases surge

Outbreaks come as vaccine skepticism rises.

By JAMES ENGEL
TribLive

Measles has reached the Pittsburgh region for the first time since 2019, and doctors warn more local cases are likely.

The diagnosis at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh announced earlier this week comes amid a state and nationwide outbreak of the highly contagious disease that was expected to eventually reach Pennsylvania’s second largest population center, according to Dr. Amesh Adalja.

“This is going to be something every county has to contend with,” said Adalja, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

The reason for the increasing outbreak is no mystery, Adalja said: sinking vaccination rates.

Herd immunity to measles typically occurs when around 95% of the population is immunized, but in Pennsylvania, that figure was closer to 92% during the 2024-25 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far this year, 379 cases of measles have been confirmed in Pennsylvania, according to state health department data. Among the cases, 181 were in Lancaster County.

According to CDC data, only South Carolina and Utah currently have more cases than the Keystone State — though federal figures were last updated Aug. 13.

And the spread has been creeping westward in Pennsylvania with eight confirmed cases in Indiana County, three in Somerset County and two in Clarion County.

UPMC said the patient diagnosed with measles at Children’s was not from Allegheny County and has been isolated. The hospital system’s chief medical officer, Dr. Donald Yealy, told Trib-Live Thursday one other person was undergoing measles testing in the county.

Dr. Marian Michaels, a physician in the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s, said she expects an increase in cases in the county, which could even result in measles-related deaths.

“It breaks my heart,” she said.

Among the 2,289 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. last year, three people died, according to CDC data. None of the more than 2,500 confirmed cases this year have died.

But the disease can still be highly harmful and leave lasting effects on a patient’s immune system, Michaels said.

Those symptoms typically begin with a fever, followed by a red rash and mouth and eye irritation.

At UPMC, Michaels said clinicians are especially watchful for the disease and have prepared isolation rooms for potential measles patients.

“People are more alert,” she said.

The solution to the nationwide outbreak, however, is simple and has been the same for decades, Michaels said — get vaccinated.

In the United States, the measles vaccine comes in the combination measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot, which is given in two doses.

Among the confirmed measles cases in Pennsylvania this year, none were fully vaccinated.

Almost half of American adults surveyed by Politico in March said they think the science on vaccines remains up for debate and that it’s damaging to require people to receive them.

Adalja blames misinformation from the highest rungs of public health for the rise in vaccine skepticism.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that rearranges federal childhood vaccine recommendations — one of which advises states to give the MMR shot in separate doses, an option not currently possible in the United States.

Trump — who called the MMR shot “quite lethal” despite CDC advisories to the contrary — and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, also repeatedly linked vaccines to autism, a widely debunked claim.

Michaels called the situation a “difficult period of time for public health.”

She advised patients to seek advice from their local physician.

Those without health insurance may receive the MMR vaccine at the Allegheny County Health Department’s immunization clinic at 425 First Ave. in Downtown Pittsburgh, according to the county.

There is no risk in getting an additional dose of the MMR vaccine for those who are uncertain if they’ve already received one, the county said.