Kansas and Ohio Report Surge in Measles Cases Amid Outbreaks

THURSDAY, March 27, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- A measles outbreak in Kansas has rapidly escalated, doubling to 23 cases in less than a week, and health officials in Ohio report that a single case in Ashtabula County has spread to nine other individuals.As of last Friday, the state of Kansas reported 10 cases across Grant, Morton, and Stevens counties in the southwestern region of the state, the Associated Press reported. The outbreak has now spread to Haskell, Gray, and Kiowa counties. All but two cases are in individuals younger than 18 years. The outbreak began with a measles case identified in Stevens County on March 13. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment issued a high alert to doctors on Monday, recommending early measles vaccination for infants aged 6 to 11 months who live in the vicinity of the outbreak counties.In Ohio, a single measles case identified in Ashtabula County has now spread to nine other individuals. A total of 10 cases are now in Ashtabula County, and a separate visitor in Knox County exposed people there and in several other counties, the state health department said.The vaccination rates for the 2023 to 2024 school year show that several Kansas counties experiencing measles outbreaks have notably low vaccination rates: Morton County (82 percent), Stevens County (83 percent), Haskell County (58 percent), and Gray County (66 percent), the AP reported. Statewide, 89 percent of kindergarteners in Ohio were vaccinated against measles in the 2023 to 2024 school year.Even prior to the reporting of these two expanding clusters, the total number of measles cases in the United States had already exceeded the case count for the entire year of 2024, according to the AP."Given the measles activity in Texas, New Mexico, and other states around the country, we're disappointed but not surprised we now have several cases here in Ohio and known exposure in some counties," Bruce Vanderhoff, M.D., director of the Ohio Department of Health, said in a statement. "This disease can be very serious, even deadly, but it is almost entirely avoidable by being properly vaccinated."Associated Press Article.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter