MORGANTOWN — A little over a month ago, a Monongalia County resident developed the first confirmed case of measles in West Virginia since 2009.
The response from the Monongalia County Health Department was immediate and overwhelming — and expensive.
Monongalia County Health Officer Dr. Lee Smith broke it all down during a recent meeting of the Monongalia County Board of Health.
Smith said the patient, who had recently returned from international travel, initially presented at an area urgent care center on April 18 before being isolated and taken to the hospital.
Already quarantined at home, the measles diagnosis was confirmed through a PCR, polymerase chain reaction, test on April 21 and the public announcement was made the following day.
By this point, MCHD was already on the case.
“We found out later that this person, the day before they had the rash and cough and runny nose and all the signs and symptoms, had actually gone to a clinic, and our exposed list grew to 157 people,” Smith said.
Ed Abbot, program manager of MCHD Infection Control and Disease Prevention assembled a team of 15 people and began tracking down the potentially exposed across seven counties and four states.
The process included more than 230-employee hours at a cost north of $15,000. Those numbers don’t include the production of Smith’s after-action report, which he’s currently compiling at the state’s request.
“It involved basically every program in the health department. Thanks to the business office that was able to track all this, because I’ve always been a proponent of produce for me what does it take to meet this response. How many people? How many hours? What’s it going to take?” Smith said. “Because it’s going to come again, and we need to be able to step up.”
The state’s measles vaccination rate also helped keep the lid on any potential outbreak.
West Virginia sits at 97% vaccinated. Smith said herd immunity occurs north of 95%.
Smith said he recently relayed this story during a briefing before U.S. House of Representatives staffers advocating for federal funding for adult vaccine efforts similar to what’s available for children.
“Measles outbreak risk in the United States depends on the global activity, which is going up, and the rate of vaccination in the United States, which is going down,” Smith said, explaining there were more than 136,000 measles deaths worldwide in 2023.
There was a total of 58 measles cases reported in the U.S. in 2023. So far, there have been 142 in 2024, nearly half of which came in one outbreak.
Smith said efforts to vaccinate adults is particularly important as an increasing number of undocumented individuals arrive in the United States.
“There was a shelter in Chicago that held 2,500 people, mostly undocumented, who were here, and they had over 60 cases of measles break out there,” Smith said. “I shudder at the thought because of the amount of stress that put on us to meet that single case.”
The measles vaccine is two shots. It provides 93% effectiveness after the first shot and 97% effectiveness after the second.
The individual who returned to West Virginia with measles had the first of two vaccines as a child.
