2 in Gentry test positive for measles

Siblings at school take ill

Measles was confirmed in two of three suspected cases in Gentry from cultures federal health investigators took earlier in the week, state and school officials said Thursday.

“At least” two of the three cases were positive, the Arkansas Department of Health said in issuing an update late Thursday afternoon.

Additional testing is pending, said Ed Barham, a spokesman for the department.

“That’s all the information I can give,” he said.

On Sunday, administrators at Ozark Adventist Academy in Gentry sent two siblingshome after they exhibited symptoms consistent with measles.

The oldest, a senior, told the school nurse Sunday that he wasn’t feeling well, Principal Mike Dale said Thursday. The nurse then rounded up the boy’s sister, a freshman at the school, and called their parents to pick them up.

The pair’s younger brother, who is too young to attend the private, Christian boarding school for ninth- through 12th-graders, had become ill Aug. 9 after traveling in Italy, Switzerland and Romania.

Nowadays, there are only about 50 cases of measles in the United States each year, according to the federal Cen-ters for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Arkansas in recent years, the Health Department reported two confirmed measles cases in 2008 and only one this year before the Gentry cases arose.

Dale said the school received the test results Thursday afternoon.

“Of the three children they presumed were having a case of the measles, the youngest one who had gone overseas tested positive,” Dale said. The senior at his school also had positive results, but not the freshman.

The two Gentry school students were among eight on its vaccination-exempt list, which means their parents obtained a letter from the state waiving a requirement for the required measles vaccination. All eight lived in on-campus dormitories, and all eight were put in isolation before they were sent home after the first student presented with symptoms of measles.

The other six students were sent home for a 21-day incubation period despite not showing symptoms, Dale said earlier this week. The parents of the students agreed to notify the school if their children begin showing symptoms, and the school nurse and some teachers have been checking on them as well, he said.

“There’s no signs or symptoms yet on any of the others,” Dale said Thursday.

On Tuesday, the Benton County Health Unit was on campus offering vaccinations for the school’s adult employees.

“Some of them had their children vaccinated also,” Dale said, adding that some faculty were concerned they might expose their young children to the measles virus.

Dale said that despite having the measles vaccine as a child and again before heading overseas with the military years ago, he decided to be immunized again Thursday.

“It didn’t hurt at all,” he said. “In fact, it never even made a bump or a red mark on me.”

The majority of the highschool’s 158 students live on campus, Dale said.

According to the CDC, the highly contagious measles virus is a particular risk for the unvaccinated or those who have not become immune from past infection. Those living in close quarters, such as families, dorm students and military recruits also are at special risk.

Some parents have requested vaccine exemptions for medical or religious reasons, or because they don’t trust vaccinations, Dale said earlier in the week.

Measles, also known as rubeola, is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the measles virus, and often is confused with rubella, or German measles.

Symptoms include a slight fever that progresses to a fever of up to 105 degrees on the third to seventh day, a cough, runny nose, and a red, blotchy rash that usually begins on the face and spreads over the entire body.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, nearly all children got the disease by the time they turned 15, federal and state officials say.

Before the vaccine in the U.S., there were up to 500 annual deaths, 48,000 hospitalizations and 1,000 cases of permanent brain damage or deafness from measles.

The CDC says measles now is rare in places like North and South America and Finland, where vaccination coverage is high, and that most cases here originate from people who contract the disease while traveling overseas and spread it to others.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 08/31/2012

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