Kentucky Health Commissioner stresses importance of measles vaccine

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – We are seeing more reports of measles in the U.S.

Just last month a case was confirmed close to Kentucky, in Ohio.

The state’s health department put a warning out that people may have been exposed at the Cincinnati–Northern Kentucky Airport.

While no cases are confirmed in Kentucky, Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack says the risk is there.

“In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the U.S., and the only way you could get it was to go to another country that still had it,” Dr. Stack said.

That is no longer the case in the U.S. The country is beginning to see more cases.

So far this year, the CDC has confirmed 45 measles cases in 17 states, including Ohio and Virginia.

In 2023, the CDC confirmed 58 cases for the whole year in 20 states. In 2022, 121 cases in just six states.

“Unfortunately now our vaccination rates have dipped. In Kentucky, they’re about 90% of kindergarteners who have been fully vaccinated for measles,” said Dr. Stack.

Dr.Stack believes the pandemic has further slowed vaccination rates.

“I think it’s all gotten caught up in the COVID pandemic in the narrative and the ideologies that have been associated with public health and medical science,” said Dr. Stack.

Dr. Stack says two doses of the measles vaccine are 97% effective. He also says getting the vaccine protects those who cannot.

“It’s not simple enough to say it is just individual risk because if you have a child that’s six months old and can’t be immunized and they get measles and get severely ill and have seizures for the rest of their life, that’s a really big deal,” said Dr. Stack.

WKYT will have more with Dr. Stack on this Sunday’s edition of Kentucky Newsmakers at 10 a.m. on the CW Lexington and at 11:30 on WKYT.

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