Arizona health officials have reported nine cases of measles in the last two weeks in the Colorado City area. Mohave County Public Health officials said the infected individuals range in age from 2 to 43 years old. None of them have been hospitalized.
Colorado City is a town of about 2,500 people on the Utah border in northwest Arizona. Many residents of the town are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and the community has very low measles vaccination rates.
The MMR vaccine is highly protective against measles. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at blocking the virus. But medical experts say about 95% of a population needs to be vaccinated against measles to prevent the virus from spreading.
“It’s the most contagious of all the childhood illnesses, that’s why the percentage needs to be that high,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association.
Records from the Arizona Department of Health Services show no schools in Mohave County have 95% MMR vaccination rates. In Colorado City, one elementary school last year reported a kindergarten MMR vaccination rate of just 7%, and the other school in the town reported a 40% kindergarten MMR vaccination rate.
Humble pointed out many FLDS children are homeschooled and are not reflected in school vaccination records.
“Because this is mostly a homeschool community, that is a disadvantage,” Humble said.
Typically, during an outbreak, public health officials can use school vaccination records to identify children who may be at risk for exposure and keep them isolated from classrooms, Humble said. In homeschool settings, those children are harder to identify, he added.
“[Vaccination] is your most effective tool,” Humble said. “The other tools you have are just to try to keep exposed, unvaccinated kids away from other unvaccinated kids. That’s easier said than done.”
Humble said he expects the case count will continue to grow in Mohave County in coming weeks. But since Colorado City is somewhat geographically isolated, he said the virus may not spread easily to other parts of Arizona. Health officials have reported six cases of measles recently in neighboring parts of southwest Utah.
According to the CDC, 1,375 measles cases have been confirmed nationwide this year — the largest U.S. outbreak in more than three decades. In addition to the nine recent cases in Mohave County, Arizona has reported four other cases this year in Navajo County.
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