Vegas measles case similar to Disneyland strain, health district says

CARSON CITY — One of the confirmed cases of measles in the Las Vegas Valley has a similar genetic makeup to a strain that caused the Disneyland outbreak, Southern Nevada’s chief medical officer told a legislative panel Friday.

That doesn’t definitively link the Nevada case to the Disney outbreak, said Dr. Joe Iser of the Southern Nevada Health District, but the latest genetic tests indicate a higher probability it is connected.

An ongoing contact investigation will try to determine how a man diagnosed in Nevada caught the respiratory illness, Iser said to the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services. That man is one of two people in Southern Nevada with a confirmed case of measles.

The man sought care at an urgent care clinic and a hospital before his measles was confirmed, and health district staff is contacting all the people who potentially could have been exposed in those settings.

Iser and state Chief Medical Officer Tracey Green were among the public health officials who updated lawmakers and answered questions about a disease that can be prevented with near certainty by following the inoculation protocol. The first dose of the measles vaccine can be administered at 12 months, and a second shot is given between the ages of 4-6, providing recipients with a 99 percent chance they will avoid the worst complications from measles.

“Measles is primarily a disease of unvaccinated people,” Green told the lawmakers. “The more children we have vaccinated, the more likely we are not to see disease in our state and across the nation.”

Constituents have asked Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, whether health care providers are able to handle the increased demand from parents eager to have their children fully immunized because of the recent attention measles has drawn.

While activity in some county clinics has increased, Iser said there is no shortage of the vaccine, and clinics in Southern Nevada have not seen a major push for immunizations.

In addition to the two confirmed cases in the Las Vegas area, six other cases are suspected in Clark County, six in Washoe and one case each in Carson City and Douglas County.

Health officials are fighting measles outbreaks that have sickened 120 people in more than a dozen mostly Western states, and many of the cases have been traced to a the theme park in Anaheim, Calif., in December.

On Thursday, five babies at a suburban Chicago daycare center were diagnosed with measles. None were were subject to a routine vaccination, required for those at least a year old.

Iser has said that physicians have a heightened awareness about potential cases and have been asking for lab tests for patients showing measles symptoms.

All 50 states have laws requiring students to have certain vaccines, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Exemptions vary by state, but all school immunization regulations allow exemptions for children with medical reasons, including those with an inhibited immune system.

Almost all states grant religious exemptions, and 20 states allow exemptions for those who object to immunizations because of personal, moral or other beliefs.

Every state bordering Nevada includes the personal beliefs exemption, but lawmakers in California and Oregon want to remove those exemptions. Immunization rates are higher in states with fewer exceptions.

“I’m grateful to live in a state that doesn’t have a personal belief exemption,” Iser said. “We have a much better chance for protecting the public from measles and other diseases, especially the young.”

The key issue in the debate over immunizations is the lack of regard people without inoculations are showing to others, said Dr. Andy Eisen, medical director for the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Touro University Nevada.

“Measles is one of the most contagious diseases we deal with,” said Eisen, who was on the Assembly committee in the last session of the Legislature but did not attend Friday’s meeting. “It will infect 90 percent of unimmunized people who are exposed.”

Someone with measles can be contagious before symptoms appear, and the measles virus is airborne and can linger in an area for hours after an infected person leaves the room, Eisen said. Immunization offers the best defense against the illness, and parents who have vaccinated their children should have confidence any risk of catching measles is minimized, Eisen said.

Eisen also dispelled common myths about vaccinations, saying pharmaceutical companies do not profit from the inoculations, the shots do not contain poisons or too many antibodies, and the diseases they target are not extinct, a fact proven by the recent outbreaks.

Most importantly, Eisen said, people should stop drawing a link between vaccines and autism based on a fraudulent study that led many parents, including celebrities who drew additional attention to the issue, to opt out of getting their children immunized.

“There’s no proposed cause for autism that has been studied more thoroughly and more frequently than vaccines,” Eisen said.

Reuters contributed to this report. Contact Steven Moore at smoore@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563.