A six-week-old baby in Pennsylvania died from measles, according to a determination by the Lancaster county coroner, as local officials continue to respond to a widening outbreak and after two measles-linked deaths were reported in the county last week.
The finding adds new urgency to the public health situation in Lancaster county, where measles cases have been rising.
Stephen Diamantoni, the county coroner, confirmed the infant’s death to several news organizations and said the child had Amish lethal microcephaly. Children born with the rare condition generally survive only five to six months, and the disorder can leave them at heightened risk from respiratory infections.
It remains unclear whether the six-week-old was among the two deaths state officials disclosed last week, the New York Times reported, as Pennsylvania health authorities have not publicly confirmed that detail.
One of those deaths, recorded on 14 August, involved a newborn whose mother had measles and passed the infection to the child.
In that case, Diamantoni told WGAL that the baby died from a ruptured spleen rather than measles, though the station reported that measles was included on the infant’s death certificate. The Atlantic separately reported that the parents believe measles caused their child’s death.
Pennsylvania has reported close to 400 measles cases in 28 counties, with nearly half concentrated in southern Lancaster county. State data show that most reported infections are among adults ages 18 to 49, though official case counts often capture only a portion of actual infections.
At a news conference last week, Governor Josh Shapiro and Debra Bogen, Pennsylvania’s health secretary, said two Lancaster county residents had died in cases they described as “measles-associated”. They declined to share additional information, citing privacy protections and respect for the people who died and their families.
The recent deaths have fueled a dispute between Shapiro, a Democrat, and the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Officials strongly suggested that the two deaths were caused by measles when they announced them, but the distinction of “measles-associated” led some on the right to dispute whether measles was actually the cause.
Shapiro had criticized Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, over his history of misinformation surrounding vaccines. The governor said that Kennedy’s rhetoric has not helped contain the measles epidemic, which has pushed US cases to the highest number in over three decades.
Kennedy responded by suggesting Shapiro’s side had fabricated the deaths in an effort to blame the health secretary. He also accused Democrats of using tactics similar to those employed during the pandemic to counter critics and encourage vaccination.
“The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ Covid playbook: fear-mongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain,” Kennedy wrote on social media.
As of Monday, top US health officials and government agencies were not including the two recent measles-associated deaths in their official counts. Kennedy also gave an incorrect number of measles deaths during a recent interview with Fox News.
Debra Houry, a former CDC chief medical officer, and Demetre Daskalakis, a former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, criticized, in a piece for Stat News, the way health and administration officials have turned deadly diseases into political talking points to be debated.
“Chicken noodle soup and vitamin A are not substitutes for vaccination, as the secretary of health claimed in 2022 while standing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the epicenter of the current outbreak,” the pair wrote. “The best way to protect children is neither complicated nor new: provide clear information and make it easier for families to get vaccinated.”
