There’s a new measles case in Michigan. It’s the 44th case this year.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the latest case is out of St. Clair County. The case involves an international traveler visiting Michigan and is not related to the southeast Michigan outbreak. Most of the cases in the outbreak occurred in Oakland County.
A new study finds Wayne County is one of the top dozen counties in the country most at risk for a measles outbreak.
Researchers at the University of Texas and Johns Hopkins University studied areas with relatively low vaccination rates and access to international airports.
Sahotra Sarkar is a philosophy and integrative biology professor at UT-Austin and the lead author of the study. He says the way to avert future measles outbreaks is to do away with non-medical exemptions for vaccinations.
“None of the major churches are against vaccinations,” says Sardar, “and these religious exemptions are often being misused by people who just have general vaccine skepticism without any good reason.”
This year, 839 people in 23 states, including Michigan, have contracted the measles. Measles was declared eradicated in the U-S in the year 2000.
