Pennsylvania health officials confirm a sixth measles-related death
Pennsylvania health officials are still investigating a seventh death reported by Franklin County’s coroner last month.
A sixth death tied to Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, the nation’s worst in decades, was confirmed on Wednesday by Pennsylvania health officials. The death involved an unvaccinated person in Jefferson County.
Officials did not provide any additional information on the death, citing state privacy laws.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Health said the state was still investigating a seventh death, reported by Franklin County’s coroner last month, but has not been able to find a local death that fits the state’s definition for one related to measles.
How Pennsylvania identifies measles-associated deaths has been the subject of intense scrutiny since officials announced in August the state’s first deaths tied to the disease in three decades, involving two infants in Lancaster County.
The Lancaster coroner, an elected Republican, said he did not believe one of those deaths was caused by measles, and later U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a Republican appointee and longtime anti-vaccination advocate, suggested that Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s staff had “fabricated” the deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under Kennedy’s direction, has been slow to log measles deaths and has acknowledged only four deaths on its measles data dashboard, without saying where they occurred. Outside of Pennsylvania, New York reported its first measles death in 30 years on Monday, a 7-month-old infant who was not vaccinated.
In Pennsylvania, state officials have largely declined to provide information on measles deaths beyond the patient’s county of residence and vaccination status; all other information has come from local coroners and right-to-know records requests.
The death reported Wednesday is the second in Jefferson County. In September, County Coroner Greg Furlong said a 40-year-old woman died from respiratory failure and measles, and added that the woman, who was unvaccinated, had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other serious health conditions that made her particularly vulnerable to the highly contagious virus.
Furlong did not immediately return a request for comment on the county’s second death.
Jefferson County has reported 92 measles cases so far this year, the state’s fourth-highest case count since the current outbreak began in April. As of Wednesday, the state has reported 1,467 cases, with 77 new cases logged in the last week.
Besides the two Jefferson County deaths, health officials have confirmed four other measles-associated deaths, which are deaths that occur within 30 days of symptom onset in a person with clinical evidence of a measles infection and a positive lab test. Such deaths cannot be due to unrelated causes, like a car crash.
Officials also consider other information in confirming a measles-associated death, including medical records and known exposures to measles.
In all, the state has confirmed three deaths in Lancaster County residents, two in Jefferson County residents, and one in a Mifflin County resident.
In Lancaster County, a local coroner challenged the state’s interpretation of one death, saying that an infant who died shortly after birth and tested positive for measles died from a lacerated spleen, not the virus, though prominent physicians have questioned that conclusion.
In October, Franklin County’s coroner said a 39-year-old woman had died from a “probable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of the measles.”
In a news release, the coroner wrote that the death fit the health department’s definition of a measles-associated death.
In a subsequent email to reporters, the coroner wrote that “per the direction of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, all deaths are considered measles associated with clinically relevant symptoms within the last 30 days prior to death.”
But the state heath department said Wednesday that its “thorough investigation” has not yet found any cases in Franklin County that fit its definition.
“DOH appreciates that the Franklin County coroner made DOH and the public aware of this case. DOH continues to work with coroners throughout the state to improve communications and refine death reporting standards during the ongoing measles outbreak,” the department wrote in a statement.
Last week, The Inquirer took legal action to contest the decision of the Franklin County coroner to partially deny a public records request seeking to learn more about the death. A Franklin County judge had ordered that information about the death be sealed from public review.
The coroner did not immediately return a call for comment.
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