A one-year-old Ingham County girl is the fifth confirmed case of measles in Michigan, and may have exposed other children to the virus at a local childcare center, according to county health officials.
The county isn’t releasing the name of the daycare where exposure may have occurred, but the families of all fifty or so kids who attend have been contacted by the health department, said Ingham County medical health officer Nike Shoyinka, MD.
The childcare center was not listed as a public potential exposure site in the county’s press release on Monday, Dr. Shoyinka said, because they’ve been “very cooperative in terms of giving us a list of the students in the school, the staff, the people who have been there,” she said. “And so the information that we need in order to communicate with the people who are exposed, and provide them with the adequate information, is available.”
Health officials are still determining how many of the children at the center are unvaccinated. But as of February, MMR vaccine coverage of children aged 19-35 months in Ingham County is 83.3%, “slightly above the state average, of 80%,” according to the county statement. “While this is encouraging, it remains below the threshold required for herd immunity.”
“We are matching records with every single child and every single family” in the school, “to make sure that we can communicate with them what they need to do,” Dr. Shoyinka said. “If a child was unvaccinated, then we would monitor them for 21 days following the last date of exposure,” which was April 8.
The other potential exposure sites include a Tractor Supply in Lansing on April 4, an Aldi’s and a farmer’s market in Okemos on April 5, Towar Baptist Church (including the infant room) in East Lansing and Toscana Restaurant on in Lansing on April 6, and MSU Community Music School and the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow Lansing emergency department on April 8.
“Measles is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable illness that spreads through airborne transmission and direct contact,” according to an Ingham County Health Department statement issued Tuesday. “To help protect the community, we strongly encourage all individuals aged 1 year and older to ensure they are up to date on the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. The MMR vaccine is safe and effective, providing approximately 97% protection with two doses.”
Child received first vaccine the day before traveling out of state
The infected child also received her first dose of the measles vaccine the day before her family took her on a plane ride out of state, health officials said.
It’s not clear at what point in the trip the child was exposed to measles, but it takes a couple weeks for the body’s immune system to fully respond to the vaccine, Dr. Shoyinka said.
“So even though this child was vaccinated, she was still relatively susceptible given the short period of time."
“However," she said. "I will say that this child's symptoms were very mild…presumably because she had received at least one dose, even though it was just 24 hours before the plane ride.”
It’s not clear yet whether the child was at the Grand Rapids or Detroit airport, Dr. Shoyinka said.
Children need two doses of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine in order to be fully immunized, and typically receive their first dose between 12-15 months and get the second dose between 4-6 years.
And infants traveling internationally should be fully vaccinated before traveling, according to the CDC.
(They can get the first dose of the MMR vaccine between 6-11 months, and then two more shots after their first birthday.)
Unvaccinated people who are exposed to measles may get some additional protection if they’re vaccinated within 72 hours of the exposure. They may also be given an immunoglobulin (IG) within six days of being exposed to measles, as a post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
For those exposed to measles, “there's a 90% chance of getting measles when you are not vaccinated at all,” Dr. Shoyinka said. “One in five children who contract measles could be hospitalized. One in 20 children could get pneumonia. And…there are about one to three children [who] could die out of 1,000 kids who contract measles. So it's really serious, but we do have things in place to address that, and that is the vaccine.”
The vaccine is available at the ICHD Immunization Clinic, located at 5303 S. Cedar Street in Lansing. Appointments can be made by calling 517-887-4316 or email Immunization@ingham.org.
