Measles Outbreak Linked to Iconic Children’s Hospital

At least four people have fallen ill with measles in Philadelphia in an outbreak that first began at the city’s iconic children’s hospital, health officials said Thursday.

An infant hospitalized late in December was carrying the highly contagious virus. Health officials are alerting staff and visitors who were at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on December 28. 

City officials also say exposures may have occurred at the Jefferson Health building on S. Ninth St. on Dec.19 and at a daycare on Castor Ave on Dec. 20 and 21. Furthermore, there were exposures at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital for Children and Nazareth Hospital in the days surrounding the new year.

The infant in question had not yet received the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Three other people who fell ill with measles in cases linked to these exposures were also unvaccinated. Officials urge unvaccinated people who may have been exposed to measles to contact their health provider.

Cherly Bettigole, M.D., the city’s health commissioner, says declining vaccination rates are at fault for this outbreak.

“Children under 12 months and adults and children who are immunocompromised remain vulnerable to measles but are generally protected because of the wall of immunity created by high community vaccination levels,” she said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we are seeing cases of measles that have spread to vulnerable individuals including young children due to people declining vaccination and also failing to adhere to quarantine recommendations.”

Two other individuals are ill with suspected measles cases. The health department is testing them for the virus.

Among the three other people to have confirmed illnesses, two of the patients’ cases required hospitalization. Both have since been released.

“Philadelphia is a city where we believe in a duty to take care of each other. We are asking all city residents who may have been exposed to measles to do their part to ensure that no additional infants are harmed by this infection,” Dr. Bettigole continued.

Measles is a highly infectious disease that has widely been controlled due to widespread uptake of the MMR vaccine. People who receive the shot, scheduled for the first few years of life, are safe from the virus. However, declining vaccination rates across the world since the COVID-19 pandemic have opened the door for the return of measles and similar viruses.

The World Health Organization warned late last year that measles cases increased 30-fold in Europe during 2023, a shocking rise in the developed world.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in major disruptions in the childhood immunization schedules for many children all around the world as [the virus] became the healthcare focus,” Amish Adalja, M.D., an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University told The Messenger at the time.