measles

An unvaccinated child in Kootenai County has been reported to have measles.

When the first U.S. case of a new coronavirus spreading throughout China was confirmed last week in Washington state, public health workers were well prepared to respond, building on lessons learned during the outbreak of measles that sickened 87 people in the state in 2019.

Government officials say anti-vaccination advocates have complicated their efforts to turn the tide on an epidemic that has killed at least 63 people, most of them children.

Many people don't know which shots they need as they get older. And the vaccines can be tougher to keep track of because many adults go to the doctor less frequently than kids do.

Americans could be forgiven for not knowing that much about measles. After all, it's been 51 years since an effective vaccine was introduced, quickly turning the disease from a common childhood experience to a rarity, and nearly two decades since the disease was declared eliminated from the U.S.

Health officials in Grant County, Washington are responding to four probable cases of mumps.

A large study released Monday finds no evidence that the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella increases the risk of autism. The study of children born in Denmark is one of the largest ever of the MMR vaccine.

All U.S. states require most parents to vaccinate their children against some preventable diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, to be able to attend school. Such laws often apply to children in private schools and day care facilities as well as public schools.But this winter's outbreaks of measles across the nation are resulting in challenges to many exemptions: At least eight states, including some that have experienced measles outbreaks this year, want to remove personal exemptions for the measles vaccine. And some states would remove the exemption for all vaccines.

Two Washington legislative bills come amid an outbreak that has sickened at least 64 people in the state — all but one in Clark County — leading Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency.

Ethan Lindenberger is 18 years old, but had never received vaccines for diseases like hepatitis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, or the chickenpox. Lindenberger's mother, Jill Wheeler, is anti-vaccine. He said she has been influenced by online misinformation, such as a debunked study that claimed certain vaccines were linked with autism, or a theory that vaccines cause brain damage.