Clark County declares official end to measles outbreak

After a month and a half without a new reported case, the measles outbreak that hit Clark County has officially been declared over.

RELATED: Measles case in King County came in contact with hundreds
RELATED: Washington measles outbreak prevalent in unvaccinated kids

“Clark County Public Health has declared the local measles outbreak over, after six weeks with no new cases,” a news release from the county said.

Clark County reported 71 confirmed cases of measles, with more cases seen both in King County and northern Oregon. Two people that were originally counted among that total were subtracted, when it was confirmed that they had moved to Georgia during the outbreak.

Most of those cases were in unvaccinated children.

Fifty-two confirmed cases were in children between 1 and 10 years old, 14 were between 11 and 18 years old, one was between 19 and 29, and four were adults between 30 and 39 years old. Sixty-one were confirmed to be unvaccinated.

Clark County’s immunization rate for school-aged children is 78 percent, well under the national rate of 91 percent.

“We’re grateful to see this outbreak come to an end without any deaths or serious complications,” said Dr. Alan Melnick, Clark County health officer and Public Health director. “But as long as measles exists elsewhere in the world and people continue travel, we’re at risk of seeing another outbreak. We must improve our immunization rates to prevent future outbreaks and keep our children and other vulnerable people safe.”

According to Melnick, officials have spent thousands of hours to clamp down on the spread of the virus.

“Overall we’ve excluded almost 800 kids from schools, and hundreds of people on active monitoring, contacting them every day and asking them to stay home,” Melnick told KIRO Radio.

The state and county together have spent at least $1.6 million dollars during that period on tests, procedures, and more. Clark County alone spent over $864,000.

“Every single case, you have to identify, you have to test, you have to isolate that person, [and] you have to do the interview of where were they at in the public — it’s very labor-intensive,” state epidemiologist Scott Lindquist told KIRO Radio back in February.

Over 230 people worked to curb the outbreak.

A bill to remove personal exemptions for the measles vaccine was recently passed in the Washington State Legislature, and awaits the governor’s signature.

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