PORTLAND, Ore. — There have already been 555 confirmed cases of the measles virus nation-wide so far this year, and according to the CDC, it's the second-highest outbreak in the United States in 25 years.
It has been several weeks since a local case was reported, so we wanted to Verify: Are the measles outbreaks in Washington and Oregon over?
Our sources for this story are:
- The Oregon Health Authority
- The Washington State Department of Health
- Centers for Disease Control
Since the beginning of the year, there have been 74 confirmed cases of the measles in Washington (only one of those cases occurred outside Clark County in Southwest Washington), and 10 cases were reported in Oregon (six of which were not related to the Clark County outbreak).
The last case of the highly contagious viral disease in Washington was reported on Monday, March 18, and the last case in Oregon was reported four days later, on March 22.
According to the CDC, there need to be 3 or more cases of an infection for it to be considered an "outbreak," when local health agencies are closely following the spread of the infection.
Following two maximum incubation periods of 21 days each (for a total of 42 days) an outbreak will be declared over.
This means the Oregon outbreak will be over May 3 and the Washington outbreak will be over April 29 -- both of course barring any new cases of measles.
And according to Delia Hernandez with the OHA, officials will "take into account current epidemiological data to make the most appropriate decisions" about ending the outbreak.
We can Verify: No, neither the Washington nor the Oregon measles outbreaks are over.
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